


Once Upon an Us

by shewritesall



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Nazi Germany, Hydra (Marvel), Lebensborn Project, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Red Room (Marvel), The Man In The High Castle inspired, Tony Stark and Natasha Romanov are Siblings, it's kind of complicated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewritesall/pseuds/shewritesall
Summary: Steve Rogers doesn't know just what he's gotten into after befriending the chatty Clint Barton.  When he first encounters secret tunnels where bar owner Carol Danvers houses two Nazi fugitives and former SSR agents Tony and Natasha Stark, he gets the feeling things aren't exactly how Clint made them seem.  As it turns out, he's been recruited by former SSR director Alexander Pierce to put an end to the Nazi Empire that's been ruling the entire world since their victory in World War II.  But what happens when Pierce isn't who he says he is and the Starks seem to be hiding their own fatal secrets?  Who's this von Strucker guy they seem to be so friendly with and how on earth does a tiny girl like Carol seem to keep outwitting him?Inspired by the Man in the High Castle, this is an Avengers story on what could have happened had Nazi Germany won the war.
Kudos: 6





	1. The Bulletproof Dumpster is Actually the Main Character

There were many abnormal things about Natasha Stark, but she tended to ignore them all and favour the bulletproof dumpster. Just like the many abnormal things, there were many reasons she ignored the many abnormal things. Most of them were not pleasant to think about (like the time she drowned someone in a kiddie swimming pool) and she prefered pretending they hadn’t ever occurred. This particular endeavor became difficult whenever she was pulled from the confines of her room by Clint Barton, one of her best friends and one of the reasons her life was abnormal.

“Get in the car,” he told her, climbing into the driver’s seat. Natasha raised an eyebrow at him but climbed in nevertheless. One quick glance at the passenger seat told her what this was about and she groaned. “Yeah, yeah, fancy Nazi meetings require fancy dresses. At least you don’t have to pose as a waiter and serve them their every need.”

“No, I have to bend to their every whim in a dress and you can do it in slacks and a nice shirt,” Natasha argued. Clint rolled his eyes. If they’d had this argument once before, they’d had it every other time. “Do you want to wear the dress again? See how comfortable it is?”

“I’m good.”

He did not need to relive that particular instance again. It was bad enough Natasha had convinced him to try on the dress while she tried on his suit. There were still photos of Clint frowning in the dress hidden around his house thanks to Natasha. It was as if she didn’t want him to ever forget the moment he’d tripped and accidentally ripped an expensive evening gown right down the front.

As a way to steer the subject away from that, Clint turned to her and said, “We’re picking up a new recruit, by the way.”

“‘New Recruit’? What are we? Hitler Youth troop leaders?” Natasha asked, making a face that made it difficult for Clint not to laugh.

“Pierce’s orders,” Clint told her. Natasha frowned and looked over at him. Clint just shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Something about needing more people around in case something goes wrong. Besides, Stevie is cool. I actually told Pierce about him.”

“Stevie? You know him?”

“Yeah, we go to the same gym and everything,” Clint said, grinning happily. He pulled to a stop in front of a small apartment complex and Natasha looked up at it. It wasn’t very extravagant, just plain and small. Of course, she lived in a bar so what could she say?

“How long have you been working on this ‘recruitment project’ for Pierce?” Natasha asked, turning back to look at Clint. He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck as he counted the months. It wasn’t often Pierce gave them separate missions without telling the other.

“Seven, maybe eight months?” Clint guessed. If Natasha was upset, she didn’t show it. She just nodded then turned back to the building, wondering aloud how this ‘Stevie’ person was going to know they were outside.

With a wicked grin, Clint hit the horn and Natasha jumped. He laughed and hit it lightly a couple more times. Natasha swatted at him and he stopped, laughing as she swore at him. A few seconds later, the front door to the complex opened and a tall, blond man walked out.

“That’s Stevie?” Natasha asked, watching as the man walked toward the car with a big smile. When Clint had told her some dude named Stevie was joining them, she’d imagined a scrawny guy who could barely run a mile. Instead, Stevie was over six feet tall, built like he’d been in the military, and could clearly knock someone out in one swing if he wanted to. And he was grinning like a kid on Christmas when he slipped into the car.

“Steve, this is Natasha,” Clint introduced, grinning at Natasha. “Natasha, this is Steve.”

“Nice to meet you,” Steve said, offering his hand. Natasha twisted in her seat to shake his hand at an awkward angle. “Clint’s mentioned you before, I think.”

“Probably,” Natasha shrugged, glancing at Clint as he sped away from Steve’s apartment. “He’s a bit in love with me.”

“No, don’t tell him about our secret affair,” Clint deadpanned, giving Natasha a look. She just grinned. Steve gave them an odd look but Natasha brushed him off.

“I’m kidding,” she assured him. Steve nodded, still looking a little uncertain about the situation. “So, Clint tell us about our mission.”

“Right,” Clint replied, pulling around into an alley to hide the car for a moment.

It was simple. Alexei Shostakov had a file they needed. According to Pierce, it contained information on past SSR operatives and missions. Shostakov’s mission was to hand it off to Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, one of Adolf Hitler’s right hand men. Natasha was to get close to Shostakov, convince him to invite her to his private room in the hotel where the mission would take place. Once alone, Natasha was to knock Shostakov unconscious and take the files without drawing attention to herself. Clint and Steve would pose as waiters, ready to intervene if necessary.

“But this is Shostakov,” Natasha said, interrupting Clint. “We can’t just knock him unconscious. He’ll be able to identify me later. Plus, he’s an asshole and I hate him.”

“We have strict orders not to kill him,” Clint told her seriously. Natasha frowned.

“Can I please kill him? Pierce doesn’t have to know,” she promised, taking the dress Clint shoved at her. He and Steve stepped out of the car, already dressed in suits (stupid Clint, not telling her ahead of time she’d have to change).

“No,” Clint said shortly. He shut the car door and he and Steve walked away from the car. Natasha changed quickly before telling the boys they could return. They slipped back into their seats and Clint backed out of the alley.

Clint parked the car a block away from the hotel and they all climbed out. Clint and Steve walked in first, leaving Natasha to follow whenever she felt it had been long enough. After about five minutes, she had managed to hijack a limo and forced the driver to take her to the front of the hotel. She slipped out of the limousine, promising the driver if he snitched she’d have his head within the hour.

She walked into the hotel and was politely greeted and led into the room the party was being held. It didn’t take long for her to spot Clint and Steve on opposite corners of the room, but both near exits. Another five seconds and she spotted Shostakov at the bar, looking around the room himself. When his eyes landed on her, she smiled shyly and gave a small wave. Maybe she could kill him just a tiny bit. Clint would never notice. 

* * *

Clint noticed. Hotel security did as well—though it might have been Shostakov’s men who raised the alarm—three seconds after they walked out of the doors. They were spotted by authorities moments before they reached their car but ignored the shout for them to stop. Natasha dove in the backseat while Clint and Steve hurried into the front seats. No one but Steve bothered to put on a seatbelt before speeding away.

“They definitely got our plate number,” Clint muttered angrily, turning sharply around a corner and throwing Natasha against the opposite window. Steve yelped as Clint turned again, causing Steve to hit the window harder than looked comfortable. Natasha glanced up to see him gripping the handle beside his head right as Clint parked the car. “Ditch,” Clint instructed.

They all jumped out of the car and ran through the nearby alley. Natasha grabbed the bag from the backseat and kicked off her heels. She tossed them in a nearby trash can and continued down the alley. Using only alleys and backstreets, they hurried through the city and dodged authorities until they were several blocks away from their ditched car.

“It’s here,” Natasha said, stopping short in front of the garbage bin. She threw open the lid and Steve watched in amazement and horror as Clint threw himself over the edge and into the can. “Get in,” Natasha demanded. He did as was told and she jumped in after him, letting the lid slam shut above them.

“Why are we in here?” Steve whispered, blinking quickly to adjust to the darkness.

“It’s bulletproof,” Natasha answered. There was a thud followed by what sounded like Clint moaning, then a flashlight turned on. Steve watched as Natasha dug around the trash bags, clearly in search of something.

“What are you looking for?” Steve asked. Natasha hushed him and put the flashlight in her armpit. Tugging roughly, she pulled a door from the back side of the garbage bin but was met with a solid brick wall. She twisted her hand into the small gap between the bin and the wall and fiddled with something Steve couldn’t see. When she pulled her hand back, though, she looked victorious. Without bothering to give an explanation, she shouldered the brick wall and slowly pushed it open.

“Guests first,” she said, motioning for Steve to walk through the short brick door first. Although he didn’t want to, Steve crawled through the door and into darkness. He stopped, waiting for instructions but was instead pushed forward.

“Keep going, Rogers,” Clint mumbled from behind him. Steve crawled forward cautiously and jumped when he heard scraping behind him. “She’s just shutting the door. Keep going.” 

“Is this safe?” Steve asked, leading the way in the tunnel that had just gotten darker.

“Nothing we’ve done all night has been safe,” Natasha replied from far behind him. Steve figured that was a fair answer, but he still had a lot of questions. He continued to lead the way forward until his head hit a wall. He stopped short and Clint’s head collided with his butt.

“Press the button on your right,” Clint instructed. Steve couldn’t see anything, so he raised his right hand and patted the wall until he found what he figured was the button Clint was talking about. As soon as he pressed it, he heard a scraping sound and a strip of light appeared in front of him. The strip grew wider as the wall slid out of the way and Steve crawled out of the tunnel and into a room. Clint and Natasha followed behind him and Natasha shut the door.

“Where are we?” Steve asked, looking around the bare room. 

“Welcome to Danvers’s Banging Bar’s back room number seven,” Clint said, opening his arms and gesturing around the room proudly. Steve raised an eyebrow, glancing around the room. It was fairly small, not quite large enough for him to lay down comfortably based on the way he could nearly touch the walls if he stretched his arms out to his sides. Except for a plastic chair in the corner, the tan room looked deserted.

“That’s a lot of alliteration,” he stated. Clint’s arms dropped to his sides and he frowned. 

“A litter-what?” he asked. Now it was Steve’s turn to frown, but before he could ask what Clint meant, Natasha pushed past him and walked towards the door opposite them.

“He doesn’t understand big words you learn in school,” she explained briefly to Steve. Clint nodded and turned to follow her out of Danvers’s Bar’s back room.

“I never went,” he said plainly. Steve’s frown deepened.

“Isn’t it required?” he asked. Clint shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at Steve while Natasha spun a dial lock then punched in a numerical code on the screen that appeared in front of her.

“Not for people like me,” he replied. Steve decided he’d leave it at that, not sure if he wanted to know what Clint meant or not. Instead, he followed Natasha and Clint out of the back room and into what looked like a back office but was covered in computer screens. There was one wall covered entirely with different monitor screens from about four feet off the floor to the ceiling. An empty desk was sitting on the opposite wall. It had two monitors itself and small speakers sitting on either side of the monitor setup.

“What is this place?” Steve asked, looking around for a place not covered by some form of technology.

“Tony’s den,” Clint answered. Natasha was surprised when Steve seemed to nod in understanding. Steve knew Tony? This guy was definitely not as clean as he’d tried to seem when she’d asked him why he was with them earlier. Anyone that knew Tony was likely in trouble or well known on the black market.

“Sometimes he stores snacks in here,” Natasha said, digging around Tony’s desk for something to eat. She was swatted at before she could get very far, though, and looked up to see Tony frowning and nibbling on an apple.

“Yeah, but they’re not here for you,” Tony told her. Natasha shrugged and stole his apple. He protested loudly and tried to grab it back, but Natasha easily avoided him.

“I do all the hard work; the least you can do is give me a snack,” she told him, ducking behind Clint and biting into Tony’s apple. Tony grumbled, leaving her alone and walking over to his desk.

“Welcome to the land of injustice and thieves,” Tony muttered to Steve, glancing up at Natasha briefly before sitting at his desk. “Carol is working. Bar closes early, though. Something about the police chasing fugitives and enforcing an early curfew.” Tony raised an eyebrow at the three in front of him. Steve turned red while Natasha and Clint ignored Tony’s gaze.

“I’m sure the fugitives were just misunderstood,” Natasha replied. Clint glared at her.

“Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten caught if they’d all stuck to their plan,” he said. Tony looked up from his monitors. 

“You didn’t follow the plan?” he asked. Natasha groaned and collapsed in an annoyed heap on the ground, crossing her legs and angrily biting into her apple. She narrowed her eyes at the apple as if it had disappointed her, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to eat it.

“It was Shostakov,” she grumbled, glaring at all three guys in front of her. “I had to kill him a little bit.”

“Natasha,” Tony groaned, leaning back in his chair and turning in a slow, disappointed circle. Tony opened his eyes and glanced at Natasha over his shoulder. He mumbled something in a language Steve was pretty sure he didn’t know. Natasha immediately snapped back and they both erupted in a frenzy of incomprehensible arguing. Steve helplessly looked to Clint, but Clint had his hearing aids out and was silently scrolling through a tablet Steve hadn’t noticed earlier. If only he had the same ability to block out the angry gibberish around him.

“I’m just gonna…” Steve trailed off, pointing towards the door of Tony’s den. He knew no one was listening, so he didn’t bother finishing his sentence before leaving the room to explore the rest of Danvers’s Bar’s back rooms.


	2. We Sneak Out But it’s Okay (Kind of)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Thank you so much for continuing to read this and I hope this next chapter lives up to your expectations!
> 
> In the last chapter, Steve, Natasha, and Clint had a mission to take information from Alexei Shostakov, someone Clint worried might recognise Natasha. Things seemed to go smoothly until Natasha decided to kill Shostakov. The three had to run from Nazi officers back to a safe house that was accessed by Natasha's favourite bulletproof dumpster. Steve met Tony, a black market merchant, but left the group when Tony and Natasha started to argue. What does he uncover while exploring the underground tunnels of Danver's Banging Bar?

To Steve’s amazement, he had to walk through two more rooms, up a flight of stairs, and through what resembled a vault before reaching the office of the bar. He had a feeling Tony had been the one who left everything unlocked as he seemed the most carefree of the three he’d left behind, but the vault had so many codes to get through, he doubted they were terribly concerned about someone finding the back rooms in the bar. When he realized the vault needed multiple codes to be unlocked, he figured he’d return to Tony’s den and find the others. However, when he turned around, he found Clint grinning like the Cheshire cat. Steve jumped and Clint’s grin grew.

“Saw you leave the catfight,” he said, shrugging and stepping around Steve to punch in the first code to the vault. “Figured I’d join you and show you around, but you seem to have figured it out yourself.”

“Well, two rooms were locked,” Steve said. Clint nodded and started on the second code after correctly entering the first one.

“Yeah, Nat and Tony always keep their room locked and the other one is Carol’s bedroom,” Clint explained. He glanced over his shoulder and added, “She doesn’t really trust Tony to leave her stuff alone.”

“Wait, you guys live here?”

“Well, I don’t,” Clint said, “My wife and I live a couple of blocks south which is why I have to leave before the curfew is enforced. The rest of them do, though.”

“And Tony and Natasha live together?” Steve asked skeptically. Thinking back to the bickering he’d left behind, he doubted the two of them living together was such a great idea. 

“Oh yeah,” Clint shrugged, entering the fourth and final code. “They’re brother and sister. They always figure things out before they’re locked in a room for the night. If they can’t, Tony sleeps in his den.”

Steve didn’t ask any more questions, partially because he didn’t want to intrude, but also because the vault was now open and he could hear the music and talk from the bar. Clint pushed open the vault and motioned for Steve to go first. Steve obliged and walked straight through the office and into the bar to find just what he’d expected: people drinking themselves into oblivion, drunks playing billiards, and music playing just loud enough he had to talk louder than usual just to be heard.

“Come on,” Clint said loudly, slapping his shoulder. “I’ll introduce you to Danvers.” Steve let Clint push him through throngs of people and up to the bar. He took a seat on one of the stools beside Clint and looked around the bar while Clint called for Danvers.

“What, Clint?” a blonde woman asked, walking over to the two of them after handing a customer his drink. “We close in ten minutes and you should be leaving.”

“I know,” Clint replied. He grinned, turning to Steve and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Steve, this is Carol Danvers. Carol, this is Steve Rogers.”

“Nice to meet you,” Steve said. Carol nodded at him and smiled, glancing distractedly to where a fight had broken out.

“You’re not moving in, right?” Carol asked, running a hand through her long hair. Steve frowned. “You seem like a nice guy, but I don’t want more roommates right now.”

“Don’t worry, I have my own place,” Steve assured her. Carol nodded, suddenly looking very relieved. Steve decided not to take it too personally. He’d probably be at his wits end too if he had to live with Tony and Natasha.

“Mind clearing everyone out?” Clint asked Carol. Carol raised an eyebrow and Clint rolled his eyes. “Curfew, clean up, mission debrief, how many reasons do you need?”

“Fine,” Carol said. She walked away from Clint and Steve and around the corner. Before Steve could ask what the plan was, the lights shut off and the music was silent. Everyone’s chatter stopped and Steve blinked quickly to adjust to the dark.

“Close your eyes,” Clint told him. Steve did as was told and seconds later, the lights came back on abruptly. Everyone grumbled loudly as Carol reappeared from around the corner.

“You have two minutes to clear out,” she yelled. The grumblings continued, but everyone hurried out when they caught sight of Carol’s glare. Steve watched in horror as Carol got everyone out of her bar in a minute and forty-two seconds. As soon as the last person was out, Carol returned to the calm girl Clint had introduced him to. It was as if she had a twin and they’d switched places the change was so dramatic.

“What needs to be discussed that can’t wait for tomorrow?” Carol asked, locking the front doors and closing the blinds.

“Nat blew our mission,” Clint explained. He jumped when Natasha appeared beside him, Tony on his other side looking equally annoyed at Clint’s accusation.

“No, I blew Shostakov’s brains,” she clarified. Steve looked away as she tugged the tight skirt of her dress up and reached under. He looked back over at the group when he heard something hit the bar top to see a slim stack of papers stapled together.

“Oh neat,” Clint said, reaching for the papers and flipping through them. “Nevermind. Tasha didn’t blow our mission.”

“Something went wrong, though,” Carol said, leaning on the bar, ignoring Steve who looked around the room in confusion. “The police are everywhere and curfew is early.”

“As I said, I blew Shostakov’s brains, not the mission,” Natasha told him. She shrugged and picked at her nails. “They might have noticed.”

“No one was caught though, right?” Carol asked. Natasha shook her head.

“Car had to be ditched, but I stole it anyway,” Clint answered. Carol nodded and flicked off all the lights except for one leading to the office. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Steve, we should head out now if we want to avoid being caught out after curfew.”

“Wait, what?” Steve asked. Clint didn’t answer. He just climbed off his bar stool and headed for the door. Natasha motioned for Steve to follow Clint, so he did.

“Stay out of trouble,” Tony called after them. Clint just smirked, winking at Tony as the door to the bar shut behind him and Steve.

* * *

Natasha was pretty sure there was a reason Tony was dragging her out of Carol’s bar in the middle of the night, but she didn’t really want to ask why. She could have made a list of reasons, but the very top two were really the only ones that counted for anything. One: Tony regularly did business with extremely sketchy people and two: there was a strict curfew in place that meant they’d be shot on sight. Tony argued with the second one, saying it only counted if they were sighted—which was unlikely—but completely agreed to the first one.

“Don’t worry, both of those are completely invalid tonight,” Tony whispered, pressing against the building they were currently hiding behind.

“They’re totally valid!” Natasha hissed back. Tony rolled his eyes.

“I said tonight,” he reminded her. They stopped breathing as an officer walked past them with an assault rifle strapped to his back. Once the man was far enough away it was safe to talk, Tony turned back around to look at his sister. “Tonight there are no sketchy people making illegal deals with me. I just needed to show you something.”

“It couldn’t have waited until morning?” Natasha irritably asked. Tony peeked around the corner to make sure they were clear then darted across the road. Natasha beat him to the other side and waited for Tony’s next move.

“No, it couldn’t,” Tony replied. Natasha kept her mouth shut, saving all her questions and annoyed comments until they weren’t at risk of getting shot by patrol officers. She followed Tony all the way across town, narrowly escaping some officers who were taking a break by a fire bin, and down to the pier. As expected, less police were standing around or patrolling on the docks than on the streets.

Natasha spun around at the sound of soft scraping on the concrete ground. Tony held a finger up to his lips, telling her to stay quiet, and peered around the corner of the shed they were currently hiding behind. Natasha crouched down and peered around the corner just in time to see a body slide behind a makeshift door. The door was pulled shut, the soft scraping returning to her ears, then the pier went silent. Natasha looked up at Tony quizzically, but he just nodded. Looking around the pier to make sure it was clear, he stepped from around the corner and scurried to the door. He turned to make sure Natasha had followed him and waved widely when he noticed she hadn’t. She growled quietly and shot across the open space.

“This better be good, Anthony,” she breathed. Tony carefully pushed open the makeshift door and ducked inside. Natasha followed suit, closing the door behind her then following Tony down the dark corridor.

She’d taken thirteen steps when she began to smell the strong aroma of tobacco and whiskey. She frowned, wondering where it was coming from and how the people ahead had gotten it. Tony didn’t deal with tobacco or alcohol, just falsified documents and the occasional computer hack.

Only four steps further and she could see a strip of yellow glowing on the floor ahead. Tony grabbed her arm and pulled to the left of the light and down a new hall instead of through the door ahead. She let him pull her along, trusting he knew what he was doing and not leading her into a death trap. They stopped just out of sight of the yellow glow and Tony reached up towards the ceiling. He failed to reach it through and turned towards Natasha.

“There’s a grate above us,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Climb on my shoulders, open it, then climb in.” Natasha did as she was told, easily mounting his shoulders. He stood up slowly, wobbling only a little, then braced himself. Natasha reached up and found the grate sitting millimetres above her head. She gently pushed it open, being careful not to make a sound. When the grate was completely moved, she brought her arms up through the hole and pulled herself into the air shaft. Once her entire body was inside and she was stable, she reached down a hand to help pull Tony up. He replaced the grate covering once he was inside the shaft as well then grinned at her in the darkness.

“Lead on,” she breathed. Tony twisted his body around and started crawling through the shaft in the direction they’d come from. Natasha slithered behind him, not making a sound as they traveled through the shaft. She could see a light glowing further down the shaft and was practically choking on the scent of tobacco by now. They crawled towards the light then stopped. The shaft wasn’t quiet wide enough for both of them to lay side by side, so Natasha crawled on top of Tony. He huffed, but couldn’t complain further without risking being heard. As soon as Natasha could see through the grate cover and down below, she buried her face in her hands to hide a gasp. Sitting in one room all together was nearly every high ranking Nazi officer she’d ever heard about or had the misfortune to meet.

* * *

Natasha could barely keep all her questions to herself as she and Tony hurried back across town before dawn. They’d been in that smelly shack on the pier for about four hours, listening to what Natasha assumed was a meeting the Führer did not know about. Why else would the highest ranking Nazi officers meet in a shabby, tobacco scented shack on the pier? How did Tony even know about this meeting? How long had they been going on?

They soon arrived at the back door to Danvers’s Bar and Tony tugged on it. It didn’t budge. He frowned and tried again, pulling harder and nearly falling when his grip slipped. Natasha glanced down the alley, knowing patrol officers were going to be passing them soon. She shoved Tony aside and fumbled with a brick on the cobblestone road. It came loose, but nothing was underneath. She cursed and forced the stone back where it’d come from.

“You didn’t leave it unlocked?” she hissed, running down the alley towards the dumpster. Tony followed close on her heels, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t at risk of being shot yet.

“I did,” Tony hissed back. Natasha opened the dumpster and Tony grimaced before climbing in. He stumbled, hitting the back of the dumpster with a loud _wham_. Natasha hurled herself into the dumpster as footsteps pounded down the road towards them. Tony had already pulled open the hidden door and Natasha followed quickly, shutting it as soon as she’d slid inside.

“How come the door was locked then, huh?” she asked, crawling through the pitch black tunnel behind Tony.

“Maybe someone woke up while we were gone and locked it,” Tony replied, “I don’t know.”

“This is the last time I’m sneaking out with you,” Natasha growled, waiting for him to open the door into the back room. It slowly slid open and Tony climbed out of the tunnel, running his hands through his dark brown hair to make sure nothing had stuck in it between the air shaft and the tunnel.

“That’s what you said last time,” Tony mumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what do you think so far? Chapter two is down and Tony and Natasha are already uncovering a secret meeting of Nazi officers. Also, who locker that door? That's not very nice, leaving our favourite heroes out to the mercy of Nazis at dawn. Good thing they didn't get caught, huh?
> 
> Another thing: I'm aware Carol is totally out of character. When I wrote this, I was planning on changing the names and making the characters my own in order to publish it on other sites. For the most part, Carol will be the only one so out of character. I wanted to make her more my own, so just pretend it's a randomly placed OC.
> 
> Leave a comment or two about your opinions so far and any title ideas! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!


	3. When the Elephant in the Room is the Lack of Peach Jam, Not Your Dead Boss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello once again! I’m so sorry for the delay in updates! I was moving this weekend and totally forgot to publish this chapter, so here it is now.
> 
> Just a quick reminder, I am looking for more titles for this book so if you have an idea, let me know in the comments or just leave a comment about what you think so far!
> 
> Just to review: Steve met Carol Danvers in the last chapter after exploring a bit more of the tunnels. After a quick mission debrief where it's revealed Natasha did, in fact, retrieve the files they needed, the group splits up for the night. Later, though, Tony pulls Natasha down to the pier to show her a secret meeting of Nazi officers. They stuck around to listen and by the time they left, it was nearing dawn. Unfortunately, someone had locked the back door of the bar and Tony and Natasha only barely escape patrol officers. What will happen next?

Tony was the absolute last one to wake up and have breakfast Even Steve had beat him to what Clint had called “the meeting room”. No one said anything about the cow lick on the back of his head or his pink turtle pyjama pants when he walked in, but clearly Natasha couldn’t resist making a comment in that foreign language the two seemed to speak. Tony muttered something back and collapsed on the chair beside her, taking the piece of toast with jam she offered him.

“Well, now that everyone’s awake, I think we should talk about the elephant in the room,” Carol said, leaning back in her swivel chair. Steve looked around the room in confusion, not sure if he was supposed to know about the elephant or not.

“There’s no elephant,” Tony said, slouching in the beanbag chair Natasha had saved for him. “I just see three ordinary men, one outrageously handsome one, our lovely Captain Danvers, and some chick who likes to put strawberry jam on toast instead of peach.”

“We don’t have peach jam!” Natasha exclaimed, swatting at him from her large recliner. Steve glanced down at the lawn chair he’d been given and the rocking chair Clint had. Where did they even find all these kinds of chairs? They couldn’t just buy a matching set?

“I think that’s the elephant we should address,” Tony said pointedly. Carol rolled her eyes and glanced at Natasha who just shrugged.

“I think we should just let Pierce explain it since he was the one who came up with the elephant,” she suggested. Clint threw his head back to groan so hard the rocking chair he was sitting on fell backwards. Carol barely glanced at him as he groaned and rubbed the back of his head.

“Pierce’s never available when we need him,” Carol told her. Clint mumbled something about how he was going to say that, but was now suffering from a concussion. Steve seemed to be the only one concerned, asking if he needed ice while the others argued about Pierce.

“Nah, man,” Clint said, fixing his rocking chair so he could sit in it again. “I’m good.”

“Let’s have the new guy decide!” Tony declared, motioning towards Steve with his half eaten toast. Steve was suddenly very aware of everyone’s eyes on him.

“Um,” he glanced at Clint for guidance, but Clint wasn’t giving any clue as to what he should say. “I’d kind of like to know why I’m here sooner rather than later.”

“That means you’re up, Natasha,” Clint grinned. Natasha scowled at him and Steve almost retracted his sentence, but she brushed him off.

“Pierce thinks he can find a team of people with all the right skills to successfully infiltrate the Nazi Regime and bring it to its knees without being caught,” Natasha told him, leaning back in her recliner. She pulled her legs up under her and motioned around the room. “He thinks we could be that team.”

“I’m sorry, he wants us to what?” Tony asked, suddenly sitting upright instead of being slouched. “I thought we were just supposed to be some hip boy band and you two were our managers or something,” he exclaimed, motioning at both Natasha and Carol.

“I can assure you that’s how I feel sometimes,” Natasha replied, side eyeing him irritatedly. “He still has some resources from his life in the SSR and has been working on forming his team for years. Apparently we didn’t all meet by coincidence.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Carol asked. Natasha shrugged and glanced at Clint who also shrugged. Steve just sat there in confusion, coming up with more and more questions as Natasha explained what was going on.

“Clint and I worked with him before the Nazis found out someone was running a secret agency,” Natasha said. That was enough to make Steve forget his manners and blurt out his questions.

“This Pierce guy worked for the SSR? How’s he still alive, then? Everyone who was SSR was murdered by the SS,” Steve pointed out. Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, but he couldn’t read her expression. She didn’t look annoyed by his interruption, but he doubted she’d clue him in if she was.

“As far as the Nazis know, he is dead,” she replied. That did the opposite of answer his questions. “Pierce was shot by the Nazis secret weapon a few years back. He wouldn’t have survived without the help of Clint’s wife, Tony’s tech, and Maria.” Steve opened his mouth to ask more, but was cut off before he could even start.

“It just gets more confusing the more you ask,” Clint told him, looking between Steve and Natasha. “It’s better to just nod and accept we’re not going to kill you too.”

“Okay,” Steve agreed, slowly relaxing in his chair. Everything about this suddenly seemed much more dangerous than what he’d originally signed up for when he agreed to go with Clint as backup the day before. It suddenly dawned on him what Clint had said moments earlier, though and he sat rigid in his chair. “Wait, what do you mean ‘kill you too’? You killed someone?”

* * *

Steve spent the entire day with, well, the group Pierce had assembled. He wasn’t sure he could call any of them his friends beside Clint, but he also wasn’t sure what Pierce was going to call his newly formed super team, as Tony so eloquently put it. Right now he was staring over Tony’s shoulder in his den, watching as Tony worked with some computer thing.

“I don’t get it,” Steve said, tilting his head to the side as Tony lazily flicked through pages of gibberish and bit into a bar of chocolate.

“What’s there to not get?” Tony asked, not bothering to glance back at Steve. Steve glanced across the room towards Natasha who was folded into an uncomfortable looking position on a bean bag, reading the daily newspaper. Did she understand what Tony was working on?

“I’ve never been that great with electronics,” Steve admitted. Tony snorted but said nothing. “This all looks like gibberish to me.”

“I can assure you it’s not gibberish,” Tony replied. That wasn’t really helpful, if Steve was honest, but with what little knowledge he had about Tony, Steve figured he wasn’t going to get a clearer answer.

Steve turned and left the den, going in search of either Clint or Carol. Carol seemed like a nice person when she wasn’t demanding people get out of her bar and if Steve had to choose a new friend out of the three of Clint’s friends, he’d choose Carol. Tony got on his nerves and Natasha was hard to read, but Carol seemed like the type of girl who was just interested in living a simple life. How she’d been drafted to join Pierce’s super team, Steve had no clue. Unlike everyone else, Carol seemed completely normal.

Steve didn’t find anyone in any of the back rooms. He got lost a couple of times, but he found neither Clint nor Carol in his search. When he came to the four-code vault, he sighed and turned around to go back to the den. He’d have to remember to ask someone for the codes to the vault if he ever wanted to be able to leave this place on his own. Come to think of it, he needed a lot of codes to get around this place. Tony’s den had three, his computer had two, and the meeting room had one very long password that involved both numbers and letters. Maybe he could just write them all down when he got them.

“Looking for someone?” Steve jumped at the sudden voice and turned around to see Carol closing the vault door. When had that opened? It had been completely silent except for Steve’s own footprints. “Sorry for scaring you,” Carol said, not looking as sorry as she sounded. “The vault’s silent so we can get in and out without drawing attention,” she explained.

“There’s no one else around,” Steve reminded her, motioning around the empty vault. “Who would notice?”

“Sometimes we use it when the bar’s open,” Carol told him, reactivating all the locks on the vault. “If someone heard something opening in here and came to check it out, things could get out of hand real quick. Besides, Natasha likes to move around without making a sound. She’s the one that keeps all the doors from squeaking.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Steve admitted. Carol nodded and the vault went silent for a few seconds.

“Clint left, if you’re looking for him,” Carol said suddenly. Steve glanced up at her and Carol’s mouth twitched into a short-lasting smile. “Said something about lunch with his wife, but I think there was more to it than that. Come on,” Carol said, motioning for Steve to follow her as she stepped around him. “I’ll give you a tour of the place.”

“That would be great,” Steve said, letting out a breath and following Carol out of the vault room. 

* * *

Natasha sat curled up in the corner of Tony’s den, flicking through the pages of  _ The Times _ . Most of the stories she didn’t really care for, but read anyway. A group of Hitler Youth in Brooklyn were being honoured for their outstanding performance during New York’s Victory Day celebration, an old Nazi officer had died last night of natural causes ( _ Lie _ , Natasha thought to herself), and other stories about people either helping the Reich or the imprisonment of those who were fighting against it. She flipped through the pages nonchalantly, casting the newspaper aside when she finished.

“Anything worthwhile?” Tony asked. Natasha shook her head.

“Nothing we haven't heard before,” she answered. She stood up, grabbing the newspaper and taking it with her to Tony’s desk. “Isaac Schmidt died peacefully in his sleep last night; a natural death, of course.” She glanced over his computer screen to see what he was doing.

“That’s interesting,” Tony hummed, switching tabs quickly and putting his previous tab on a monitor hanging on the wall opposite him. “I thought Schmidt had discovered he had Alzheimer’s last week.”

“Must have been a mistake,” Natasha replied. They both knew it wasn’t, but they didn’t have to say that out loud. Natasha had worked for the Reich long enough to know exactly how things worked on the inside.

“Come check this out,” Tony said, waving her over to his computer screen. She groaned and turned around from where she’d been about to leave his den. Tony pushed his chair back so she could read what he’d found.

“You found all this in half a day?” Natasha asked a minute later. She raised an eyebrow at him skeptically and he shrugged proudly.

“What can I say? I’m the best,” he replied. Natasha snorted and stood upright. “We’re checking this out, though, right?”

“Yeah, if the best ever gets off his ass and decides to join me,” Natasha said, leaving Tony scrambling to lock his computers and den before rushing out after her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think Tony and Natasha are searching for? Do you prefer peach jam or strawberry? Find out next week what happens to our favourite group next!


	4. We Sneak Out Again, But This Time It’s Not Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Welcome to the last Sunday of January! Seems like January flew by and we're almost in the second month of 2020. As you can see, I'm back with another chapter! Keep leaving your comments and kudos as I love them both and enjoy!
> 
> Recap: Natasha reveals to the group that Pierce has been orchestrating a grand plan from the beginning, bringing them all together so they can topple to Nazi Empire. Not everyone takes it very well, though, especially Tony who has to suffer through breakfast without his beloved strawberry jam. Soon after that meeting, Tony and Natasha are alone to do their own research and discover something important. They disappear from the bar without a trace to hunt down whatever this new information is that Tony found.

It took three days before Pierce appeared in Danvers’s Bar’s back rooms. Tony nearly dropped his bowl of cereal when he walked into his den to see Pierce standing in front of his wall of monitors. All the screens were blank and Pierce looked upset enough that Tony figured he hadn’t been able to unlock the computers. Smirking, Tony strutted over to his computer desk and sat down in his chair. Pierce didn’t bother turning around to look at Tony, continuing to stare at the dark screens in front of him.

“You here for a reason or do you just want to stare at the wall?” Tony asked before shoveling a bite of cereal in his mouth. Pierce glanced over his shoulder, looking at Tony without amusement. “I’m assuming you have a reason since I know you don’t really like me. Need a new identity? Want me to get you safely past the Nazi embassy and to the jungles of Africa?”

“Not yet,” Pierce replied, turning around fully and walking over to Tony’s desk. Tony looked up at him and slowly slurped some milk from his bowl. Pierce stared at him expressionlessly until he stopped. “I need you—” Pierce was interrupted by slurping from Tony. He paused, waiting for Tony to stop, then continued to say, “—to gather—” More slurping followed by Tony scraping the last of his cereal into his mouth. “—information on the—” Tony slurped up the last of his milk loudly and Pierce took a deep breath, glaring sternly at Tony. “—recent imports and—I swear to god, Stark, if you slurp that one more time I will personally escort you to hell.” Tony took one last, tiny slurp then set down his bowl.

“I’m all ears,” he grinned. Pierce looked at him doubtfully.

“I wouldn’t be too optimistic about this one,” Natasha said from the doorway. Both Pierce and Tony turned to look at her. “He woke up ten minutes ago with the desire to annoy everyone he comes into contact with.”

“That’s true. I did.”

“What brings you to our humble abode?” Natasha asked, stepping into the den. Tony stood up from his desk, grabbing his bowl to take and wash later. Pierce ignored him and refocused his attention on Natasha. The dark haired Stark could wait; the redheaded one could actually be of assistance.

“I heard my team had finally all been assembled and was ready for their mission,” he told her, raising an eyebrow in question. Natasha shrugged and nodded, stepping aside so Tony could leave his den and wash his bowl.

“If you call knowing each other’s names assembled and ready, then yeah,” she replied. Pierce pursed his lips but motioned for her to lead him out of the den. He’d only ever been in Tony’s den and the room that led to the garbage bin exit. Rather than get lost and wander aimlessly around the tunnels of Danvers’s back rooms, he figured he’d let Natasha lead.

Natasha took him to the room that had been christened their meeting area and left him alone with Tony while she went to find Carol. She was working in the bar, getting things ready for opening in an hour, but was willing to humor Pierce for a short time. Natasha only needed to make a quick phone call to Clint before he and Steve arrived ten minutes later.

“Take a seat,” Pierce told them all. He remained standing as everyone else found a chair they liked and got comfortable. Once they were all settled, Pierce snatched up the tablet Tony was holding and flicked it towards the table.

Steve jumped backwards as a holograph appeared in front of them and slowly turned so they could all see it. They all immediately recognised the man in the photo before them as Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, one of the most influential men in Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. It was rather blurry, but it was clear enough they all recognised him. He appeared to be talking to another man outside a dark building. The second man was turned just enough they couldn’t make out who he was, but Natasha’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Tony glanced at her, and leaned closer to whisper something in her ear. She shook her head then looked at the picture closer.

“Not sure,” she muttered back to him. Pierce watched them closely but couldn’t figure out what Tony had said. With his face turned completely away and Natasha’s hair covering his lips, Pierce wasn’t able to try and read what Tony had asked. Clint seemed to notice Pierce watching them then and pulled his attention away.

“So von Strucker,” he stated, leaning back in the rocking chair. Pierce raised an eyebrow at him as he turned from Natasha and Tony to look at Clint. “What’s he got to do with us?”

“You’re going to trail him,” Pierce said casually. Clint frowned and glanced around the room. No one else seemed off put by Pierce’s statement, but Tony and Natasha were still whispering to each other in Italian while Carol was rarely put out in the field. Clint doubted Pierce meant Steve considering the guy stood out with his broad shoulders and was over six feet tall.

“Who’s the other guy?” Carol asked, uncrossing her arms so she could motion towards the photo. “Looks like he’s important if he’s got direct contact with von Strucker.”

“Oh he is,” Pierce agreed. He swiped across the tablet and brought up another photo. It was at a different angle, but the second man’s face was still hidden from view. “I’m hoping that by trailing von Strucker, we can find out who he is. Once we’ve got that much, then we can get to work.”

“How do you suggest we tail the most important Nazi next to Hitler?” Tony asked, pulling away from Natasha to rejoin the conversation. Natasha was still scrutinizing the photo, visibly irritated that she didn’t recognise the second man.

“There’s a job opening as his secretary,” Pierce said. Natasha looked up, expecting him to give her the job, but he shook his head at her. “You’d be recognised in three days tops. Clint’s going to be donning the role of actor.”

“Do you really think he’ll give me the job when there’s a line of girls ready to bend to his every need?” Clint asked. Pierce tossed him a packet of papers and Clint skimmed over it. Pierce had given him every requirement von Strucker could possibly want in a secretary and then some.

“While Clint is excelling at acting, the rest of you will be behind the scenes,” Pierce said. Tony was responsible for outfitting Clint with untraceable tech. Pierce wanted Clint to be able to get cameras in and out without notice and Tony had just the idea. Spotting his tablet on the other side of the table, he stole it back from Pierce and immediately began working on his idea.

Steve would take an open position as janitor despite the fact that he looked more like a soldier than a janitor. Once he started working, he’d be given keys to every door and could contact them immediately if something went wrong from inside. Carol and Natasha were put on stand-by for the moment being; they’d be around if anything went wrong, but neither could be of much use to the team at the moment. As soon as Pierce had given them detailed instructions on how to conduct their mission, he left just as quietly as he’d arrived.

* * *

Clint woke up to Natasha quietly shaking him awake. She covered his mouth to keep him from screaming then pulled him out of his room. Once they were downstairs and far enough away their talking wouldn’t wake up Clint’s wife, she uncovered his mouth and let him go. Clint immediately demanded to know what she was doing there and why she couldn’t wait until morning.

“If we wait until morning, we’ll miss it,” she hissed at him, chucking a pair of shoes at him and grabbing a jacket. She was bundled up in an old jacket, a pair of knit gloves, and a hat. Clint pulled on his shoes then took his jacket from her, staring at her in confusion.

“Miss what?” he asked. Natasha didn’t answer. After making sure there weren’t any patrol officers on the street, she pulled open the apartment door and hurried across the road. Clint followed, shutting the door quietly and darting after her. “Nat, is this really the best idea?” he whispered, ducking into an alleyway to avoid an oncoming patroller.

“Just trust me,” she whispered back. They waited until the officer passed them to continue down the street silently. Clint didn’t ask any more questions, letting Natasha lead the way to their destination. When they arrived at the pier, Clint frowned and looked around. What were they doing here in the middle of the night?

Natasha told Clint to stay where he was before she hurried across the dock towards an old building. She pulled open part of the wall, creating a doorway, then waved for Clint to follow. He ran across the dock and into the dark hallway. Natasha closed the door behind them then led him down the dark hall. Just like Tony had when he’d brought her, Natasha took Clint to the air shaft and climbed on his shoulders to open it. She pulled him up and they crawled through the shaft until they were over the meeting room. Clint gave her a quizzical look, but Natasha wasn’t looking at him. She was focused on the meeting occurring down below. Clint turned his gaze downward and choked back a gasp when he saw Baron Wolfgang von Strucker and many other important Nazi officers.

Down below, Wolfgang von Strucker was leaning back in a chair, looking vaguely irritated by the man who was currently talking. He tapped a pen against the table, tuning out the other man and staring at the table top. Suddenly, his pen stopped tapping and he looked up at the man talking. As if he had sensed von Strucker’s stare, the man slowly trailed off and turned to look at him. von Strucker stared at the man with narrowed eyes, leaving the room in uncomfortable silence.

“Tell me, Herr Baum,” von Strucker began quietly, setting his pen on the table and folding his hands. He leaned on the table, resting his folded hands on top, and asked, “Have you ever worked on a security detail?” Baum shook his head and von Strucker pursed his lips. “Do you know what it’s like to guard a high-profile individual? Have you ever been to the Führer’s personal chambers?” Again, Baum shook his head. von Strucker exhaled as he leaned back in his chair, his piercing gaze still on Baum who was beginning to look more and more nervous as time passed.

“With all due respect, Baron von Strucker,” another man spoke up, drawing von Strucker’s attention away from Baum. “This plan of yours already requires much more expertise than any of us have.” If von Strucker was upset by this comment, he didn’t let it show. He slowly looked around the table at all the men assembled, analysing each one as his gaze passed over them.

Clint shifted in the air shaft, trying to get more comfortable, and accidentally hit the side hard enough to make a low sound resonate around them. Natasha glared at him fiercely and Clint’s eyes widened in horror when he noticed von Strucker’s gaze had turned upward. Natasha and Clint held their breaths, but von Strucker had heard them. He made eye contact with Natasha and his eyes narrowed, trying to see her face better.

“We have company,” von Strucker announced to his table of guests, staring into Natasha’s eyes. He couldn’t quite make out the intruder’s face, but he could see a figure staring back at him with bright green eyes. The grate provided enough light to see their face and he burned the image into his mind.

“Go,” Natasha hissed urgently. Clint crawled out of the air shaft as fast and as silently as he could. Natasha hurried after him, dropping out of the shaft silently. She didn’t bother replacing the grate and pushed Clint down the hall. They ran out of the building, leaving the door to the building open as they shot across the dock.

They could hear footsteps following after them and von Strucker giving out urgent orders on the dead pier. Clint and Natasha didn’t stop running even when they had to cross a road in front of a patrol officer. Let him see them; if von Strucker got them, they would have much more problems on their hands.

“Stop!” the officer yelled, struggling to pull the rifle from his back. Clint and Natasha were gone before he could catch up to them, but that didn’t stop him from informing his fellow officers to the two curfew-breakers.

Natasha pulled the hood of her jacket over her red hair, trying to make it as hard for officers to pin them down in the morning as possible. She passed Clint, about to dart across the road that would get them to safety, but Clint snatched her arm. She snapped back so hard they both stumbled backwards at the impact. The back of her head hit his chin and he let out a low hiss. He pulled her flush against the building as a trio of patrol officers went running past them. She nodded her thanks at him then hurried across the road once it was clear.

As they’d done days before, Natasha opened the garbage bin and Clint dove in without hesitation. Natasha promptly followed, shutting the lid quietly while Clint pulled open the hidden door. He ducked inside the tunnel and left Natasha to shut the door after them. She’d barely turned to close the door when they heard shouts of angry German outside the garbage bin. Natasha pulled the door shut in one hard tug just as the lid to the garbage bin was opened. She could hear the shouting even from inside the tunnel and crawled faster than she’d ever crawled in her life.

She tumbled out of the tunnel and into the back room in one smooth motion, breathing deeply as Clint closed and locked the tunnel door. The lights in the room slowly turned on and Natasha could see a small cut on Clint’s chin from where her head had collided with his earlier. Other than that, they were both unscathed. Their clothes were filthy from the air shaft and tunnel crawling, but that wasn’t a big concern for either of them.

“Did von Strucker see you?” Clint asked urgently, putting his hands on her shoulders. Natasha was still panting from their run and almost being spotted in the tunnel behind the dumpster. “Natasha, did he see you?” Natasha tore her gaze from the wall behind him and looked directly at him.

“Yes,” she whispered, swallowing down a gulp of air as they both realised what that meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Among other things, Clint is being hired to act as a secretary? What? And let's not forget there's now a manhunt for Natasha and Clint after von Strucker saw them in the air shaft. What's next for our Avengers and why is it so important von Strucker didn't recognise Natasha? Let me know in the comments and don't forget to keep throwing me title suggestions!


	5. A Soiree, But in a Bar With a Gun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back! As you can see, I haven’t changed the title so please give me yours ideas or if you think it’s good as it is, let me know!
> 
> In the last chapter, we saw Pierce finally arrive and meet his team. The group has a brief gathering where Pierce explains their objective again then reveals Clint and Steve will be infiltrating Nazi headquarters while Natasha and Carol stay to the side. Later that night, Natasha goes to find Clint in his house and takes him to see the meeting of Nazi officials Tony had shown her earlier. Unlike the last time, though, this time they're spotted and von Strucker sees them in the vent. They barely escape the Nazis by escaping into the tunnels and returning to the bar, but that doesn't mean they're safe. Find out what happens after below.

Natasha paced in Tony’s den, arms wrapped around herself as she moved back and forth. Clint wasn’t able to go back home since the patrol officers were still combing the streets for them, so they were stuck in Tony’s den. As soon as they’d caught their breath, Natasha had gone to shake Tony awake and tell him what had happened. He wasn’t very pleased with the rude awakening, but after Natasha had explained what had happened twice, he was wide awake. He’d been at his computer for half an hour, combing through every one of his resources to figure out if von Strucker had filed an order for her arrest. It didn’t appear that he had, which made sense after Natasha had told him they’d definitely been meeting in secret. She’d run him down on what they’d heard and he frowned before changing his search.

“He can’t file an official report,” Clint said, fiddling with his ring in the corner of Tony’s den. He was currently occupying Natasha’s bean bag which had left her with nothing else to do but pace the room. “That meeting has to stay under wraps and any official report would be suspicious.”

“That doesn’t mean he won’t send out a search party off the books,” Tony replied. He glanced at Natasha but she didn’t seem to be listening to them as she paced, too deep in thought to be of much assistance. “He has the means to get away with anything without suspicion.” Clint didn’t object; they all knew von Strucker was powerful and could probably kill half of the world’s population without anyone tracing it back to him.

“Put alerts on anything that could be tied back to von Strucker,” Natasha suddenly instructed. Tony already had a system set up that would alert him every time certain Nazi officers sent out private orders or did anything that wasn’t public knowledge. von Strucker had been one of the first Nazis he’d tagged and Natasha knew this, so why she was telling him now, he didn’t know.

“I already—” Natasha cut him off before he could remind her.

“Tag everything that ties him to me,” she told him. Tony frowned in confusion and Clint looked up from the bean bag. “Anything that could be tied to the Red Room, to HYDRA, to the SSR, all of it needs to be tagged and scanned for patterns that could tie it back to von Strucker. If two things show up within five minutes of each other, I want to know.”

“Nat, what are you on about?” Clint asked, standing up and joining her behind Tony.

“I don’t know yet,” she answered, watching Tony add keywords to the system’s database. With each entry, more and more alerts and notices popped up on his desktop. Some were from years ago when Natasha was still tied in with one of the three organisations she’d listed, but some were from a couple hours ago, directly after von Strucker had checked into the office despite it being 3:30 in the morning.

* * *

Pierce wasn’t fooling around when he said he could guarantee Clint would get the job as von Strucker’s secretary. The entire time Clint was being interviewed, he could feel cameras on him that he couldn’t see and knew there were people watching him that he didn’t want knowing he existed. Nonetheless, he remained calm and acted as if he was the person Pierce’s file made him into. After an hour of fake references and false experience, Clint was saluting the interviewer and walking out of the building with a job. He passed Steve on the way out who was being shown around the building in his new janitor uniform. They made eye contact, but neither made a move to show they knew each other in case someone was watching.

Clint made it all the way back to Danvers’s Bar without suspicion. He noted the extra police that were roaming the streets, but they weren’t trailing him so he felt like it was safe enough to return. He let himself into the bar and through the vault in Carol’s back office. He had to go all the way back to the dining slash meeting room before he found anyone. He could hear laughter coming from the room all the way down the hall and was confused as to why it sounded like there were three female voices instead of just the normal two. As soon as he stepped into the dining room and spotted a familiar dark-haired woman, he relaxed.

“Hill,” Clint nodded in greeting, walking past the three women and towards the fridge. Maria Hill, one of Pierce’s only friends and one of the few people he actually trusted, showed up every so often. She tended to come by when Pierce did, but based on the story about a rescue mission in Mumbai she was telling Carol and Natasha, Clint figured she’d been too busy.

“Well if it ain’t the circus freak,” Maria teased, setting down her mug to get up and hug Clint. He grinned and accepted her hug, snatching the bag of chips off the counter as he pulled back. “I heard you got a fancy new job as von Strucker’s secretary. Didn’t take you for the skirt-wearing, ass-kissing type, but it’s always nice to discover new secrets about your friends.”

“Har har,” Clint said dryly. He shot Natasha a glare as she whispered something to Carol with a smile, but Natasha just grinned even more. “For your information, there were no skirts worn or asses kissed today.”

“Are you sure?” Natasha smirked, leaning back in her chair. “I could have sworn there was a skirt missing from my closet this morning.” Clint didn’t bother replying as he rolled his eyes and left the room. Maria sat back down in her seat beside Natasha and the three girls continued their conversation. They went through two full kettles of tea before they finished catching up and Carol had to go. Maria went with her out to the front rooms to help Carol get ready to open the bar while Natasha went back into Tony’s den to see what he was up to. Fortunately for them, they had a few more days before Maria was planning on leaving so there was no rush when it came to catching up and hanging out before they were sent their separate ways on missions.

* * *

Tony knew he should probably mention what was going on to Pierce, but at the same time, he didn’t really trust the man enough. Sure, he used to run a top secret spy agency before they got found out, but they’d been discovered and only four agents in the entire agency were still alive. The last time Tony had trusted Pierce with something related to his sister’s history, she’d gotten a bullet to the chest and he’d had to remake her entire life story just so she wouldn’t be hunted down again. So no, Tony didn’t quite trust Pierce enough to tell him Natasha was back on von Strucker’s radar and the man had pretty much teamed up with all her old pals.

Originally he hadn’t wanted to tell Natasha, either, but she’d walked in without him noticing and it was too late to lie to her, so he’d had no choice but to tell her everything he’d found in the past four hours. Needless to say, she needed a minute to process it all. His den remained dead silent as she sat on the bean bag chair he’d pulled over before his explanation. He watched her closely, trying to gauge any reaction she let show on her face, but it was near impossible to read her.

“Are you absolutely sure?” she eventually asked. Tony nodded solemnly, glancing at all the open files on his desktop that acted as evidence. “We have to tell Pierce.”

“No,” Tony immediately denied. Natasha was visibly shocked at his refusal and frowned. “The last time I trusted him with information about our past, you returned with a bullet in your chest, minutes away from dying. If Laura hadn’t been there, you would have died right in front of me. That’s not happening again.”

“And it won’t, Tony,” Natasha assured him, standing up and moving to take her bean bag back to its usual spot. “We learned from our mistakes last time, but we need to tell Pierce before Clint and Steve continue with the plan.”

“No,” Tony repeated. He grabbed her shoulders gently but tight enough she couldn’t easily slip away. “We’re going to figure this out ourselves, okay?” he said earnestly. Natasha looked doubtful, but Tony refused to let her leave without agreeing. “If we absolutely cannot get this under control, then we’ll tell Pierce, but until then, this stays between us. I can’t lose you too, okay?”

“Okay,” Natasha said softly, grabbing onto his wrists.

“Do you promise not to tell anyone?” he asked. She nodded, biting her lower lip as she realised Tony was truly desperate. He had tears in his eyes she could tell he was trying to keep back, but it wasn’t working.

“I promise,” she whispered, hugging him tightly. Tony wrapped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her thick hair. The image of her bleeding out on the dining room table while Laura, Clint, and Carol worked frantically to stem the blood flow was still fresh in his mind, but he could feel her even breaths on his neck as he hugged her and forced himself to remember they’d be alright. If it came down to it, he could take her far from Pierce and they could start a new life where they’d never be found. First, though, he’d get von Strucker off her trail.

* * *

Natasha sat at the bar counter, a bottle of vodka in her hand as she watched Tony attempt to flirt with a customer. Maria was laughing beside her while Carol was busy with another customer. Tony wasn’t having very much luck, making it enjoyable for her and Maria to watch, but miserable for all parties actively involved. The music echoed through the bar loudly, the bass shaking the walls just enough that if she set her beer on the counter it would slowly walk away. Natasha didn’t mind people all around or the music that made it so she couldn’t really hear Maria when she talked; it provided a good cover for anyone on the run from the police or a place to blend in if she needed to. Thankfully, she didn’t need the bar for any of those reasons at the moment and was able to just enjoy her time.

“Let’s go show ‘em how it’s done,” Maria yelled over the music, setting down her beer and motioning towards a billiards table full of drunk men. Natasha smiled and set her drink on the counter top, letting Maria drag her across the bar. They passed Tony who had moved on from Target Blue Eyes and onto a pretty brunette. Natasha stepped to the side, knocking him against the girl and making her accidentally spill her drink all down Tony’s shirt. He glared at Natasha, but the brunette became visibly flustered and made it her duty to clean his shirt. When Tony realised the new girl was interested, he shot Natasha a smile instead. She wasn’t looking by then, too focused on her game of billiards to care that her brother had changed his mind about how he felt about her running into him.

Maria stood beside her, cheering her on as Natasha easily beat everyone at the table in just a few shots. She managed to win twice in a row before people stopped wanting to play against her. She shrugged and she and Maria returned to the bar where their drinks were still waiting. They talked about anything and everything from stories of old missions to memories of Clint’s wedding. Halfway through Natasha’s recount of an adventure she and Tony had gone on when they were only five and six years old, she felt someone’s eyes on her.

Maria’s eyes narrowed as Natasha stumbled over a word before continuing on normally. She watched Natasha’s face closely as she glanced over the crowd of people. Natasha continued to tell her story just as energetically as before, but Maria could see her scanning everyone carefully, clearly looking for someone.

“What is it?” Maria asked, looking over Natasha back and scanning the part of the room Natasha couldn’t. If she spun around on her stool to stare at the crowd, whoever was watching them would know they’d been discovered. She’d have to rely on Maria to check over her back.

“We’re being watched,” Natasha said, quietly but grinning to make it look like it was part of her story. Maria wasn’t unfamiliar with the way Natasha acted, excited and tipsy enough someone watching might think she was drunk. If Maria didn’t know her better, she’d think her friend was buzzed. Luckily for her, she did know he better and was able to catch on immediately.

“Do you think it’s important or just an infatuated customer?” Maria asked, giggling as she tipped forward to pretend to whisper something. Natasha hesitated as her eyes caught on a man in a dark coat. He was seated near the front door, but his hat was pulled over his head. Despite having a drink in front of him, it had obviously not been touched. Closer inspection of the front seating areas revealed two more men dressed similarly seated on the other side of the door and a couple of men near the back door leading into Carol’s office. Just like the first man, these men all had drinks they hadn’t touched.

“There’s six,” Natasha whispered in her ear, eyes skimming the crowd for more. It appeared to only be those few, though she wouldn’t be surprised if there were some people dressed like customers that were with the six men as well. “There’s a guy at your two o’clock, two at your four, and three near Carol’s office.”

“I see ‘em,” Maria confirmed, skimming the crowd and spotting the three at the front. She didn’t turn to see the others near Carol’s office, but she trusted Natasha to be able to spot them. “What do we do?” she asked, looking back at Natasha. Natasha scanned the crowd for Tony, spotting him still talking to the brunette from earlier.

“Grab Carol and let her know,” Natasha instructed, sliding off the stool she was on. “I’m going to grab Tony.”

“Got it,” Maria nodded. Natasha left the bar and slipped across the room to Tony. She bumped into him, catching both his and the brunette’s attention.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, brushing over Tony as if she was making sure he was alright. “It’s so crowded and I didn’t see you. I’m sorry.” She left without another word, smiling down at the brunette and making her way across the bar. She watched as Tony reached into his back pocket, continuing to casually chat with the brunette girl. Natasha saw his hand still as his fingers found the paper she’d stuffed in his pocket when she bumped into him and he excused himself for the bathroom. Just like she had, he slipped through the crowd unnoticed and disappeared into the bathroom.

At the counter, Maria was nodding as she spoke to Carol. Carol glanced around the room, spotting each agent as Maria pointed him out despite Maria telling her not to be obvious. Carol’s eyes widened and Maria spun around just in time to see Natasha jump on the back of Agent One. The other agents immediately leapt into action, but Natasha had snapped the first man’s neck before he even knew she’d attacked him. She quickly clambered off the dead agent, ignoring the screams that now rang through the bar, and darted towards the other two that had been at the front.

“Get everyone out,” Maria told Carol. She nodded and started gathering people and leading them out through the delivery port. A crowd of people followed her through the storage closet and into the alley, flooding the streets in a panic. While Carol worked to get everyone out unharmed, Maria lunged for the three agents that had come from guarding Carol’s office.

Natasha was sitting on the shoulders of Agent Two, a thin rope wrapped around his neck as she choked him. He tried to throw her off, but her thighs were clamped around his neck and she was not going to be moving until she wanted to. Agent Three tried grabbing her, but Agent Two kept moving around, unintentionally making it harder for his partner. Frustrated, Agent Three pulled a gun and shot at her. Natasha threw herself backward, narrowly avoiding the bullet that flew over her while Agent Two stumbled backward and fell from underneath her. She snapped his neck, forgoing her chokehold in favour of a quicker death, then dove for the third agent.

Unlike the first two, the third one had pulled a gun on her. She dropped to the ground, swinging her leg out in an attempt to knock him off his feet, but he only wobbled. Agent Three twisted around as she sprang up behind him, trying to shoot her again, but she grabbed the barrel and ripped the gun from his hand, tossing it over the bar counter. That wasn’t enough to stop him, though, and he reached out to hit her. Natasha grinned as she realised he wanted to fight her and immediately accepted the challenge. It had been a while since she’d fought at hand-to-hand combat with someone other than Clint or Tony. However, she was surprised to discover Agent Three could keep up with her and had obviously had vigorous training. She was suddenly reminded of what Tony had found out about von Strucker connected with people she used to work for, getting distracted long enough the agent was able to land a hard punch to her jaw. She stumbled backward, knocking into Tony who was only just now rushing out of the bathroom.

“What took you so long?” she demanded before charging forward and throwing herself back at the agent. She was about to wrap her legs around the man’s neck and pull him down, but the agent stepped to the side and kicked her harshly in the ribs. She dropped to the ground and rolled to avoid being stomped on.

“I had to actually use the bathroom, not just read your note,” Tony told her, moving to help her take down the agent. She waved him off, glaring at the agent as he tried to kick her again.

“I’m fine,” she snapped at him, jumping to her feet and kicking Agent Three. “Go help Maria.” Tony was about to protest, but Natasha pulled out a knife he didn’t realise she had and stabbed the agent in the chest. Tony hurried off to help Maria who was fighting two agents on her own. He grabbed a beer bottle off the bar counter and brought it down over the back of Agent Four’s head. The agent stumbled, reaching back to touch his head in shock and Tony kicked out his knee. Agent Four collapsed to the ground but twisted around to grab Tony. Tony leapt backward out of his reach then kicked him hard in the jaw. Agent Four yelled out in pain as he bit his tongue, spitting blood out on the floor. Before he could retaliate, Tony hit him over the head with a bar stool and he crumpled to the ground unconscious.

“Take that, you Hitler-loving bastard!” Tony exclaimed, mocking the unconscious agent. Maria grabbed the chair he’d used and spun around to hit Agent Five with it. Tony jumped out of the way, almost being hit mid swing, and watched in awe as Maria beat the agent into unconsciousness with a chair. When she was finished, she put the chair down and brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

“About time you showed up,” she panted. Tony nodded and looked back towards Natasha right as she pulled her knife from Agent Three’s body for the fourth time. Tony grimaced and looked away as Natasha wiped her knife clean then hid it on her body again.

“That’s only five,” she said, looking around at the three dead agents and two unconscious. She frowned, but didn’t move to kill the remaining two herself. “Where’s the sixth one?” Tony jumped as they heard a bang come from Carol’s office. They scrambled around the corner and peered into the office, ready to fight the last agent. Pierce was standing in the door to the vault, his gun pointed at a now dead Agent Six.

“I think we need to talk,” he said, giving each of them pointed looks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What an exciting chapter! Not only does Tony openly distrust Pierce, but there's a bar fight that ends with the man standing in the door of the open vault! Let me know what you think is going on and any other thoughts you had while reading. Until next week!


	6. Despite What You May Think, Sasha Can Be a Boy’s Name and This is How We Prove It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to chapter six of my Nazi AU Avengers story! Just a one thing to let you know of: I will be traveling this next week and might not be able to post on Sunday, therefore if you see a chapter posted a bit earlier or a bit later, you'll know why. I'm just not certain I'll have WiFi on Sunday, so I'll post earlier if possible. Anyway, keep throwing me titles and your comments and thanks again so much for reading this story!
> 
> In the last chapter, we finally got to see Agent Maria Hill join our crew and we got to see a little bit of her fighting style, but first Tony accidentally uncovered a conspiracy related to Natasha and her past involvement in HYDRA, one of the Nazi Empire's greatest independent agencies. Unfortunately, he doesn't feel like he can trust Pierce with the information and in his worry about what to do, Natasha finds out about it as well. The two decide to take care of it on their own then move on to the bar where everyone else is enjoying themselves. It's not long before something goes wrong and six Nazi agents are spotted watching them. Warrior agents Natasha and Maria take out most of them, finding the last agent dead by Pierce's hand as he stands in the doorway to the secret vault entrance. What happens after that? Read below to find out!

Despite the fact that Maria, Carol, Natasha, and Tony had managed to keep all civilians out of harm's way and prevent von Strucker’s agents from hurting anyone or getting away, Pierce looked upset. Tony was pretty sure that if Pierce had a superpower it would be the ability to blow steam out of his ears. Pierce glared at each of them from the head of the table, arms crossed and visibly angry. He hadn’t said anything yet, but it was obvious they were in for a lecture as soon as he stopped powering steam boats on the Mississippi River.

“It hasn’t even been a day since Barton and Rogers started working at the Reich’s Headquarters here,” Pierce said quietly. He walked around the table, continuing to stare at each of them as if they would crack just because he made eye contact. “There’s no way we were found out that quickly. Not only that, but neither Barton nor Rogers were here tonight which leads me to believe they came for something else.”

“Obviously they did,” Carol said, turning to look up at him. “They were snooping around my office and I don’t keep two full grown men in my filing cabinets.” Pierce ignored her retort and continued around the table. He hesitated the tiniest bit when he stepped behind Natasha, but she kept her stare straight ahead. Tony could tell she was almost as angry as Pierce was, but she didn’t show it aside from keeping her arms crossed and her face in a hard stare.

“What could they possibly want in your office?” Maria asked, turning to Carol. “As far as they know, you just run a bar. You’ve never had any connections to something that could make you a target.” Carol shrugged and they continued to quietly discuss what the agents could have been after while Pierce continued to walk around the table. Each time he passed Natasha and Tony, he would hesitate just enough they noticed. Natasha’s nails were digging into her arms, leaving marks but not quite drawing blood.

When Pierce paused longer than before on his third time around, Maria and Carol looked up. Natasha’s demeanor hadn’t changed, but Tony was vibrating with irritation. He refused to tell Pierce anything, already having resorted to letting Natasha do all the talking no matter what when they’d first seen Pierce in the vault. Natasha said nothing, though. Even when Pierce stared down at her for a full two minutes, she didn’t react. Tony, on the other hand, was about to erupt in a frenzy of anger and irritation and he knew Pierce knew it.

“ _ Don’t do it _ ,” Natasha told Tony sharply in Italian. Tony’s leg stopped bouncing and he glanced at her. She turned her head to look at him, the only movement she’d made since arriving in the meeting room. “ _ It’s just what he wants; don’t do anything _ .” Tony huffed but forced himself to relax and ignore Pierce. The next step Pierce took was harsher, a testament to how annoyed Natasha and Tony were making him.

“So no one knows why six agents—who could probably be traced back to von Strucker—attacked the bar tonight?” Pierce asked, stopping at the head of the table and looking at the four of them once more.

“Unless he wanted my order receipts or old employee files, no,” Carol answered, glancing across the table at Natasha. She didn’t so much as blink and Carol turned back to Pierce. “It’s possible they were looking to get into the back rooms, but that’s impossible without all the codes.”

“Maybe they were looking for the codes?” Natasha suggested, silently daring Pierce to argue with her. “Who’s to say they don’t already know what goes on back here and wanted a way in?”

“I feel like it goes a little deeper than just some codes,” Pierce replied. Natasha didn’t respond and Pierce sighed when he realised she wasn’t going to keep arguing. “Here’s what I see: six agents appear the day after we tag von Strucker and try to get into your back rooms,” he said, pointing at Carol. She immediately sat forward to argue, but Pierce interrupted her. “I’m not saying you’re in cahoots with the Nazis, but I am saying someone is. Someone told them where to find the entrance and who to expect. I’d think it was one of you except clearly all four of you were busy killing or otherwise maiming them to the best of your abilities.” Pierce’s gaze paused over Tony who just rolled his eyes. Screw him for not knowing how to fight; at least he’d done something.

“You think it’s Barton or Rogers,” Maria stated. Pierce neither confirmed nor denied her accusation, but they could all tell that’s what he wanted to say. “That’s absurd. We saw Barton this afternoon and Rogers is so pure he screamed when Natasha stepped on a spider the other day.”

“I’m not saying it’s true,” Pierce denied, raising his hands in surrender. “I’m saying that something is going on and until we find out what we can’t keep telling everyone everything. I don’t want anyone else knowing the codes to this place and that includes Rogers now. I don’t care if you have to set up a bell so every time he wants to leave he just rings it and you let him out. No one else learns about this place or has the codes until I give the all clear, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they all echoed. Pierce nodded in content then looked around the kitchen.

“Now, does anyone have chips because I am starving,” he said, pillaging the cabinets and pantry in search of a bag of chips.

* * *

Steve could tell something had changed over the three days since he’d been hired as a janitor. When he and Clint returned from the Nazi embassy and entered through the back tunnel, Carol had narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. Natasha still acted the same, but Steve got the feeling he wasn’t welcomed anymore. He glanced at Clint questioningly, wondering if there had been a big argument earlier they had missed, but Clint just shrugged helplessly. He was just as clueless as to what was going on as Steve was, but he couldn’t let it affect him too much if he was going to work with these people to take down von Strucker. After what he and Natasha had heard the other night on the pier, he was more determined than ever to find out who the man with von Strucker had been and to stop him before it was too late.  _ Cliche, _ Clint thought to himself with a frown. He sounded like every main character to ever come into existence.

“I’m going to talk to Tony,” Clint told Steve, getting up from the table where he’d just finished a very late lunch. Apparently von Strucker’s secretary was expected to be alright with skipping lunch sometimes and as much as Clint hated that, he had to pretend it was alright.

“Should I come along?” Steve asked, standing up as well. The last thing he wanted to do was be left alone in the dining room. He doubted Carol or Natasha would kill him for whatever had gone down earlier, but he didn’t want to run the risk considering he didn’t know the two girls very well.

“Um, no offense,” Clint began. Steve stopped pushing his chair in and looked at Clint who was scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I just—I don’t think Tony likes you all that much and clearly something happened earlier, so it might be best if you just hung out here until I finished.”

“Sure,” Steve nodded, trying no to show just how much he hated that idea. “No problem. Do you mind if I wander around?”

“I don’t,” Clint replied. Steve narrowed his eyes at Clint as he heard the ‘but’ in his voice. “I don’t know about Carol, though. Maybe take Natasha with you or something so she doesn’t try to throw you out.” Steve decided he’d just stay in the kitchen. Natasha gave off a weird vibe and he didn’t want to give her any reason to dislike him. Besides, he was pretty good at self entertaining if he did say so himself (and he did). “Whatever you want, man,” Clint shrugged. He left the dining room without another word, heading straight for Tony’s den where he found both Starks talking in rapid Italian. They stopped as soon as he stepped into the den despite the fact that he didn’t know Italian.

“What?” Tony asked a little harsher than necessary. Clint gave him a look but Tony didn’t look sorry for snapping at him. “We’re busy, Barton.”

“Yeah, well I figured you’d want my report after three days with von Strucker,” Clint replied, sounding just as annoyed as Tony had. If Tony wanted to be rude, Clint would beat him at his own game.

“Figured wrong,” Tony said shortly, turning back in his chair so he was working on his computers again. Clint rolled his eyes and relayed the information anyway. It didn’t take long before Tony was actually listening, typing up a few notes as Clint spoke. Natasha remained neutral in the corner, picking at her nails on the bean bag she was seated on.

When Clint finished, he turned to leave them alone but was stopped. Tony called him back but was still focused on his computer. He scrolled through the document of notes he’d typed during Clint’s report and frowned as he searched for what he wanted. Clint waited impatiently, well aware that Steve wasn’t comfortable being left alone in the dining room. Tony’s face lit up in victory when he found what he wanted and waved Clint over to him.

“You said something about a Sasha Petrovich?” Tony asked, typing the name into his computer. Clint frowned, trying to think back on the past three days and nodded slowly.

“Yeah, I heard the name once, I think,” he replied, watching Tony flip through files that had popped up when he’d searched “Sasha Petrovich”. “There was no official indicator he was visiting and I walked into von Strucker’s office while he was in there. He must have arrived when I was gone, but he and von Strucker seemed like they were having an intense conversation. von Strucker might have said something else—the doors were closed and I was worried I’d get caught eavesdropping—but I’m pretty sure—hey! That’s him!” Clint exclaimed, pointing at the screen as Tony pulled up a file with a blurry photo that was labeled with Ivan Petrovich’s name.

Before Clint could process what had happened, Natasha had appeared beside him to peer over Tony’s shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat and Tony closed out of the file. Natasha immediately demanded he pull it back up, doing it herself when he tried to argue with her. She stepped back as she stared at the photo on his screen and crossed her arms. Clint and Tony shared a look before twisting to face Natasha.

“That’s our in,” she told them, pointing at the computer. “Petrovich is our way in when it comes to finding out who von Strucker was meeting with in the photo.”

“How do you know?” Tony asked, glancing over his shoulder at the photo still displayed on his screen. Natasha was staring at the photo without blinking. Tony waved a hand in front of her and she jumped. Tony frowned, immediately worried, and repeated his question.

“Ivan Petrovich was one of my trainers,” she told him, finally looking away from the photo. Tony closed it as soon as she’d averted her eyes and locked his computer. “He went by Sasha when meetings were off the books. If he’s sending agents to von Strucker, then either he knows I’m involved and not dead like we made it seem years ago or this is much more complicated than we originally thought.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dang! Traitors and Petrovich, what else could go wrong? Drop a comment below about what you thought about this chapter and what you think will happen next.


	7. When People Ask Who Started a Fight, It’s Best to Just Respond With “Who’s to Say?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back for another chapter of this exciting Man in the High Castle inspired work! I hope you're all enjoying it so far and thanks for all the comments you've been leaving; it makes my day to see people are enjoying my work and commenting on it. Let's quickly recount the last chapter then we'll be off.
> 
> If you remember from last week, Pierce arrived just in time to kill a Nazi agent and proceeded to announce there was a traitor in their midst. Without any other leads, it's believed Clint and Steve could possibly be working with the Nazis and everyone's put on edge; especially when they come to the bar three days later and act like they don't know the others were attacked. However, after recounting the past few days at the embassy to Tony, Clint might have uncovered something big. Ivan "Sasha" Petrovich not only met with von Strucker off the books, but the man was apparently one of Natasha's trainers from her days in the Red Room. Could things be bigger than what they seem?

Clint recounted his entire time at the Nazi embassy for Tony and Natasha in detail, making sure he didn’t leave out even the times he’d left for lunch and found his favourite pen had moved or when he’d found a page had been ripped from his scheduling book. They went through every little detail, Natasha listening intently while Tony took more notes. The more Clint thought about it, the more uncomfortable he felt about the entire situation. With every question Natasha asked him, he realised it was very likely he was being toyed with at the embassy and that they knew exactly why he was there. Every time he’d gone out for lunch or to run an unimportant errand, he’d come back to find von Strucker just returning from somewhere or someone he didn’t recognise leaving the floor von Strucker’s office was on. He definitely didn’t leave those details out in his recount of everything. He had completely forgotten about Steve in the dining room by the time they finished. He only remembered when Tony asked about how Steve had been acting after the work days.

“He’s in the dining room!” Clint suddenly announced, sitting upright from where he’d been lying down. “I wonder if he’s having the same thing happen.” He could have sworn Tony and Natasha shared a look between them, but it was gone before he could be sure. He left the den and hurried down the halls to find Steve sketching on a paper towel in the dining room. Carol was leaning against the counter top, staring at Steve with pursed lips and narrowed eyes as she sipped something from a mug.

“Are you done?” Steve asked, looking up desperately when he heard Clint enter. Clint just waved for him to follow him down the hall. “What’s going on?”

“We found something suspicious in my recount of the past few days,” Clint explained vaguely. He walked straight through Tony’s den, leaving Steve alone with Tony and Natasha for a moment. He grabbed the plastic chair out of the Danvers’s Bar’s back room number seven and set it out for Steve. Steve looked around in confusion, but one glance at Natasha’s hard stare and firm instruction to sit, he did as he was told.

“We need to know everything about your past few days at the embassy,” Tony told him, leaning forward and prepared to write more notes. “Even if all you did was sweep dust and wipe mirrors, we need a detailed recount of it all.”

“Um, okay,” Steve agreed, shifting under Natasha’s hard stare. He started from the beginning, subconsciously thanking his perfect memory as he recalled everyone he’d encountered and everything that had happened in the past few days. He’d tried to be as exact as possible, but he felt bad when he couldn’t provide them with names like they asked. He’d just seen their faces, not heard their names. Most people didn’t talk to janitor, let alone Nazis. When he’d finished, he wasn’t sure if Natasha and Tony were satisfied or not.

“That’s all I can tell you guys,” Steve said, not sure what else he could say to please them. He’d told them all he remembered right down to the amount of piles he’d swept each day. He sighed when neither Tony nor Natasha reacted positively, looking at Clint for help, but Clint was watching the Stark siblings with a curious look on his face.

“You don’t trust him,” Clint realised, looking at Tony and Natasha in shock. Why he was shocked, he wasn’t really sure. It had taken a year or two to get them to trust him despite the fact that he’d helped Natasha escape the Nazi regime relatively unharmed. He wasn’t sure why he had expected them to trust Steve right off the bat.

“Of course we don’t, Clint,” Natasha replied, unfazed by Clint’s sudden declaration. Steve on the other hand, felt a little hurt. Sure, he’d only known them for about a week or so, but he still wanted them to trust him. They were trailing the second most powerful Nazi in the Reich; it wasn’t unreasonable for Steve to want his teammates to trust him.

“We were attacked by six men the other night, did you know that?” Tony asked, staring at Steve as if it was his fault. Steve frowned, trying not to be too upset by Tony’s words, but failed as Tony continued to point hypothetical fingers. “He goes on a mission with you and Nat and that mission fails. He’s gone for a couple days and six men show up, knowing exactly who they’d find in that bar and where the vault in Carol’s office was. It doesn’t look very good for him here, does it?”

“Excuse me,” Steve interjected. Tony rolled his eyes and looked up at Natasha instead of at Steve. “I know you haven’t known me that long, but I’m not a Nazi.”

“I never said you were,” Tony pointed out, jumping up from his seat. “You practically just confirmed it.”

“He’s not a Nazi,” Clint exclaimed, getting between Steve and Tony as Tony clenched his fists. Natasha continued to stare at Steve from behind Tony, ignoring Clint and Tony’s angry yelling. Steve tried to tune it out as well, but he refused to be demoted to the title of ‘Nazi’.

“You don’t have to like me, Tony, but don’t try and turn me into a bad guy,” Steve growled. Clint pushed him away from Tony, but that just made Steve even more upset. “I’m the one stalking a guarded fox den every day while you sit back here with your computer games and baby sister who likes to paint her nails.”

“You do not get to say that,” Tony yelled, lunging for Steve. Clint was caught in the middle as Tony tried to beat Steve into a pulp. Unfortunately for both Clint and Tony, Steve fought back just as vigorously. Tony landed a punch to Steve’s ear moments before Steve elbowed Clint on his way to punch Tony’s face. Clint retaliated by kicking Steve in the chest and swinging his arm around to hit Tony’s head. Tony fumed and grabbed the nearest object to him. He hit Clint over the head with his keyboard, smashing it multiple times over his shoulders and face until it was well beyond fixable. Steve charged at Tony, grabbing his waist and crashing to the floor. He was about to punch in Tony’s nose, but Natasha appeared behind him and pulled his arm behind his back with a strength he hadn’t expected her to possess. When Steve groaned at the pressure, beginning to worry his arm would pop out of its socket, she threw him off Tony and spun around to knock Clint off his feet. Once all three boys were lying on the floor in varying degrees of pain, she stood up and frowned at each of them.

“No one in this room is the Nazi spy,” she told them, giving Tony a hard look. Tony had the decency to look ashamed and avoid her stare as he sat up. “Just because I believe you, Steve, doesn’t mean I trust you. The sooner you get that through your head, the better.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve murmured. He sat up, rubbing his shoulder and looking at Clint who was frowning and rubbing the back of his head.

“So if Steve’s not the Nazi spy, who is?” Tony asked, finally looking back up at Natasha in confusion.

* * *

If Natasha was honest, she didn’t know who the Nazi spy was. She had a couple ideas, but they all seemed absurd. The first one she’d tossed out the window was Carol which was quickly followed by the possibility of it being Tony. While she knew he didn’t necessarily like Pierce or agree with his mission involving von Strucker, he’d never do anything that put anyone other than himself at risk. That had flown out the window when six men had attacked them in the bar. She believed Steve’s story no matter how much she hated it. It was always easier when the Nazis walked right to her rather than made her go to them. However, if von Strucker really was in contact with Ivan Petrovich and he knew she wasn’t actually dead, everything was automatically made more complicated than necessary.  _ I’m gonna need more vodka _ , she thought, making a mental note to have Carol order her favourite brand with her next order. For the moment, though, she needed to focus on finding a new keyboard for Tony after he’d destroyed his over Clint’s head.

“This one is fine, Tony,” she said, holding up a plain black one. Tony made a face at it but took it from her hands to inspect closer. “We have five minutes before they close and only seventy-five Reichsmarks. Decide fast.”

“I like this one,” Tony declared, reaching for a much fancier keyboard. It had a split between letters for his right hand and letters for his left hand. It had a padded edge to rest his wrists on and its own number pad unlike the one Natasha had offered him. After making sure it had every F-key at the top, he nodded and led the way to the cashier. The man didn’t hardly blink as he scanned the keyboard, took the Reichsmarks Natasha handed him, and gave them a receipt. They left the store without difficulty and hurried back to the bar. Instead of going through the dumpster, they walked in through the side door and entered the back rooms through the vault.

“You’re back,” Carol stated as they passed her in the hallway. Natasha showed her the keyboard they’d bought as she followed Tony back to his den and Carol nodded in understanding. She’d walked into the den moments after the boys had stopped fighting to see what all the yelling was about. She’d immediately backtracked at the sight of Natasha standing over the three of them and a shattered keyboard. If there was one thing she was good at, it was overlooking situations she didn’t want to be held accountable for.

Tony spent the first five minutes after returning from the store hooking his new keyboard up to his computer. Steve and Clint were eating in the dining room with Natasha but brought him food when they’d finished. Tony switched between eating and searching through files for every name Clint had overhead while at the embassy. Steve would look at the photos and let them know whether or not he’d seen them at the embassy. Unfortunately, almost every person had been at the embassy and most of them were fairly low-ranking Nazis. After an hour of useless searching, Natasha spoke up.

“Try Daniel Whitehall,” she suggested, pointing at Tony’s computer. She was sitting on her bean bag working on her tablet silently while the boys worked together. Tony typed in the name, having to try three times before he spelled it correctly and a face popped up.

“He was there.” Steve nodded, looking at the blurry photo that had showed up. Natasha looked at him, setting aside her tablet and watching him closely.

“You’re positive? Whitehall was there?” she asked. Steve nodded again and Natasha cursed. She hurried across the room and stepped between Tony and the computer. Tony raised his hands in defeat as Natasha took control of his computer. She pulled Whitehall’s file up onto a screen on the wall and searched up other names. She found three more people—only one of whom Steve admitted to seeing—and put their profiles up next to Whitehall’s on the screens in front of them.

“I’ve seen that guy,” Clint said, pointing at the wall. “The one in the middle; I’ve seen him before.”

“Where?” Steve asked. He certainly hadn’t been at the embassy or if he had, Steve had missed him.

“He was at that place we went, Natasha,” Clint said, turning to face her. Natasha looked up from the computer at him, pursing her lips as she tried to remember who had been in the room with von Strucker a few nights prior. Tony looked between them once before piecing together what they were talking about. He sighed and rolled his eyes. Of course Natasha had taken Clint to the pier at some point. Why was he surprised?

“What? I don’t follow,” Steve said. Clint didn’t explain it and Steve was left to wonder what they were talking about.

Natasha’s face suddenly lit up as she remembered seeing both Whitehall and Grigor Pchelintsov at the meeting with von Strucker. She took down the two profiles no one had recognised and replaced them with seven more; all men who had been at von Strucker’s meeting. Unsurprisingly, most of them were outlined in red, signalling there were key words that tied them to one of the many words Tony kept tagged on his computer. She stared at them for a little while before her eyes slowly widened and she looked down at Tony.

“I know what’s going on,” she told him. She looked back at the profiles and shook her head. Tony asked what she meant, but his questions fell on deaf ears. Natasha was too focused on the screens in front of her to bother hearing Tony or Clint or Steve ask her a million things. “I’ll be back,” she announced, leaving the room quickly and going to find Carol.

* * *

Carol was sitting in her office on the other side of the vault preparing a list of things for her next order. She saw the vault door open out of her peripheral vision and knew it was Natasha when she couldn’t hear footsteps. She only looked up when she saw Natasha’s shadow in front of her. Natasha was standing on the other side of her desk wearing jeans, a large t-shirt Carol figured was actually Tony’s, a leather jacket, and a baseball cap. Her red hair had been braided and tucked under a short blonde wig. She was wearing glasses and even though she didn’t look it, Carol was absolutely certain she was packing weapons up to her teeth. Carol raised an eyebrow at her in question, but Natasha didn’t offer an explanation.

“We’re going to find Maria,” she told her. Carol looked down at her notebooks then back up at Natasha. When Natasha realised Carol wasn’t immediately on board, she said, “I know what’s going on with von Strucker and who he met, but we need to find Maria first.” That was enough to get Carol to put her books away and grab a jacket. She followed Natasha out the side door of the bar and onto the street.

“So is grunge your new look or are we being tailed?” Carol asked quietly, falling into step with Natasha. Natasha looked past her down a street and narrowed her eyes when she noticed the patrol officers seemed more than fit to do their job.

“Von Strucker knows I’m alive,” she murmured, grabbing Carol’s elbow and steering her down a new street. As unnerved as Carol felt, she didn’t speed up her pace. Natasha looped her arm through Carol’s, making it appear like they were just two friends going into town rather than one friend guiding another to some unknown location. “Short story is he saw me the other night and based on Tony’s reports, he’s sent out a few of my old coworkers to hunt me down,” she explained briefly. She tugged Carol around a corner and Carol stumbled over a rough patch of cobblestone.

“Not that I don’t love you and all,” Carol said quietly, looking around the street nervously. Natasha pinched her arm and Carol tried to change her facial expression into one that appeared calm instead of worried. “But I’m not really cut out for this kind of “escape the bad guys” and undercover thing.”

“You’re doing great,” Natasha assured her. Carol was pretty sure Natasha had just said that so she’d calm down, but it didn’t really work. Natasha pulled her into a shop and they pretended to look at the little trinkets the shop owner had. Natasha was doing a much better job at pretending than Carol was, if she was completely honest. Carol couldn’t stop the pounding in her ears or her racing heart no matter how often Natasha pointed out cute cat drawings or figurines. It was only after Natasha was leading her to the bathroom in the back that Carol wondered what kind of shop had so many cat themed trinkets in it.

Natasha didn’t let her ask before gently pushing her into the bathroom and locking the door. Carol waited for Natasha to tell her there weren’t any cameras or recording devices around before panicking. She took deep breaths and paced the bathroom, looking up at Natasha every now and then. Natasha waited patiently for Carol to get all her panic out in a quiet and efficient way, watching as she tucked at her hair and muttered unintelligably.

“I can’t do this!” Carol whispered loudly, tugging at her blonde hair. Natasha stepped forward, and gently put her hands on Carol’s shoulders. “I can’t do the sneaking around stuff like you can. You should have brought Tony or Clint--hell, Steve would have done better!”

“Hey, hey,” Natasha said, rubbing Carol’s arms to calm her down. Carol looked up at Natasha with wide, panicked eyes. “I can’t bring any of them; you’re my only bet right now. Clint and Steve work at the embassy now and if they’re seen with me, they’re compromised. Von Strucker’s first bet would be to find Tony and tag any girl he’s seen with, including me. No one would suspect Carol Danvers, bar owner extraordinaire, to be in cahoots with Natasha Stark. You’re the only one I have, Carol, and I need you to pretend you’re on a fun, girl’s day for four hours, can you do that?” Natasha looked at Carol earnestly and for a moment Carol started to believe she could.

“I--I think…” she trailed off then shook her head fiercely. “I can’t do that, Natasha! I’m horrible at lying and I can’t hide my emotions for anything!”

“You have to try!” Natasha exclaimed, shaking Carol hard enough she knew Natasha wasn’t kidding. Carol bit her lip as tears sprang into her eyes and Natasha sighed. She dropped her hands from Carol’s arms and closed her eyes. The bathroom was silent as Natasha tried to think of how she could convince Carol to be her cover. In the end, she sighed and nodded. “Alright,” she said softly, “I know how you feel about undercover missions and I shouldn’t have dragged you along with me. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Carol said quietly, looking at the ground. “I can try. I promise to do my best, but I don’t think my best is good enough.” Natasha shook her head and looked up at Carol.

“No, go back home,” she told her, pulling Carol in for a hug. “I don’t know why I felt the need for someone to go with me to get Maria. I can do it on my own and you can go back to the bar.” Carol nodded and Natasha gave her a warm smile. “Now go,” she instructed, opening the bathroom door. They walked out of the shop together and Carol managed to hug Natasha and say goodbye as if they were just finishing their girl’s day out. Natasha waved, watching Carol until she turned the corner and was out of sight. As soon as she was gone, Natasha continued her walk to Maria’s apartment on the other end of town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so first I'm gonna clear things up. Grigor Pchelintsov (he was only mentioned briefly, but may have confused some) was a psychologist in the Red Room (comics) who led the girls to believe they were being trained in ballet. As of now, I'm not sure if he will make another appearance, but I wanted to clear up any of that confusion. Another clarification is with Daniel Whitehall. He is a German born HYDRA agent who was originally named Werner Reinhardt. He will be making another appearance almost certainly.
> 
> Anyway, now that I've cleared things up, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and feel free to leave comments below!


	8. In Which Being Bulletproof is Nice, But Not A Normal Human Quality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are sure getting out of hand quickly, huh? In the last chapter, Natasha discovered two of the people who met with von Strucker were her trainers from the Red Room and leaves Tony's den without a word. On her way out, she grabs Carol and pulls her along to go see Maria only for Carol to back out and head home while Natasha continues on the find Maria. Except things aren't easy for the Avengers ever and this is no exception. Enjoy this next exciting chapter and pretty please leave more comments!

Natasha arrived at Maria’s house nearly an hour and a half after she’d left Carol. Maria didn’t immediately open the door, but Natasha wasn’t surprised. When she finally did pull the door open, it was just wide enough for Natasha to slip through and shut behind her. If Maria was surprised to see Natasha, she hid it well. Instead, she glanced at Natasha before returning to the kitchen where she’d been about to eat dinner.

“I know the man Pierce’s looking for and what von Strucker has planned,” Natasha told her. Maria raised an eyebrow at her as she took a sip of her soup. Natasha sat in one of the wooden chairs at the dining room table and looked up at Maria. “Do you want the short story or the long story?” she asked. Maria shrugged and sat in the chair across from Natasha.

“I don’t have anywhere to be,” she replied. Natasha nodded and recounted the story from the beginning. She told Maria how Clint and Steve had both reported suspicious people appearing whenever it seemed convenient. Maria nodded along and frowned when Natasha gave her a list of people who were working with von Strucker and how she knew them.

“Hold up,” Maria interrupted. Natasha paused in the middle of telling her about Clint recognising Whitehall when Maria waved her hands. “Where did you see him if he wasn’t at the embassy?”

“He was at the bar Tuesday,” Natasha lied easily. She wasn’t sure telling more people about the secret meeting on the pier was a good idea even if it was Maria. The less people that knew, the safer the secret would be. She finished telling Maria everything and the room fell into silence.

“You’re absolutely positive?” Maria asked quietly. Natasha nodded. “Then I’ll call Pierce and get him down here. He’ll want to know everything.”

* * *

Natasha walked back to the bar at a relaxed pace. She could see the officer tailing her but didn’t give him any indication she knew about him. She let him follow her back to the front of the bar doors, glancing out of the corner of her eye before tugging on the doors. They didn’t budge and she frowned. She tried again, but they remained locked. The officer was still walking towards her as she peered inside the windows, frowning more when she noticed all the bar lights off. She didn’t want to tip the officer to where the spare key was hidden, so she shrugged and walked down the street further. She turned the corner in the alley and sprinted towards the garbage bin. Before she could open the lid to climb in, a gunshot went off in her direction and she dropped to the ground. She looked up to see the officer that had been tailing her and two others running towards her. Before they could shoot her, she ducked behind the garbage bin and reached for the gun she kept stowed away under the bin.

“You can’t hide, Stark!” an officer barked. Natasha glanced around the corner then stuck out her arm and fired three times. Two of the officers slumped to the ground, but only one was dead. The other one moaned as blood seeped from his chest. The third one was completely unharmed.

“Who says I was hiding?” Natasha smirked. She fired at the third man again, but he dodged the bullet and shot at her. They shot at each other until Natasha ran out of bullets. She cursed and ducked behind the garbage bin. The third man kept firing at her, but the garbage bin provided a safe cover.

The bullets stopped raining down on her and Natasha looked around the corner of the garbage bin. She jumped when she saw the officer hardly an arm’s length away. He lunged for her, but she dodged and kneed him in the gut. He barely stumbled and punched her in the face. Natasha’s eyes watered at the impact and she blinked rapidly as she darted around the officer. He spun around quickly, snatching her arm when she tried to strike him. He twisted it painfully and tried to slam his elbow into her back. Natasha dropped to the ground before he could make impact and he stumbled forward. She twisted out of his grip and wrapped her legs around his torso, using her momentum and weight to throw him to the ground. He rolled out from under her but was unable to stand up before she had pounced on him again and held a knife to his throat. She glared at him but he didn’t seem worried.

“How did von Strucker find me? How does Petrovich know I’m alive?” she demanded, pressing the knife against his throat hard enough to cut him. The man didn’t even blink at her. She punched his face and growled again. “How did they find me?”

“You were never invisible,” the man snarled at her. Natasha’s grip on the knife tightened and she pressed harder. The man barely shifted under her, but she pressed the knife harder still to his throat. “The beauty of it all is that you’ll never know who betrayed you. That’s what trust does: blinds you to--” Natasha slit his neck before he could finish. She climbed off his body and threw it in the dumpster. She walked over to the officer that was still bleeding out and slit his neck without hesitation. She carried his body to the dumpster as well then threw in the third officer before climbing inside herself.

She didn’t realise she was covered in blood until she climbed out of the tunnel and into the light. She closed the tunnel door then headed to her room to change. Tony wasn’t in his den as she passed through and the halls were pretty empty. She frowned, but focused on getting changed before going to find the others. The last thing she needed was to explain how she got to be covered in dead Nazis’ blood.

“Where have you been?”

Natasha looked up at the sound of Tony’s voice to see him standing in the doorway to their room. He looked incredibly relieved to see her and as much as she wanted to tease him about being a worry-wart, she knew something bad must have happened for him to have been so concerned. She closed her dresser drawers and brushed her hair out of her face as she turned to face him.

“I went to talk to Maria,” she replied. Tony pursed his lips and Natasha frowned. “What happened?”

“Carol’s missing,” he told her. Natasha tilted her head, telling him she’d sent her back to the bar only twenty minutes or so after they’d left. “Yeah, well she never showed up. You know what did show up?” Natasha shook her head and Tony motioned for her to follow him. He led her back to his den where he pulled up footage from inside a building. It was a short video clip he’d saved to his computer, but it didn’t take long to figure out why. Carol was being escorted into the room by a large officer, hands cuffed behind her back and a cut on her cheek.

“When did this pop up?” Natasha asked, watching as the video restarted. Tony closed out of the clip and typed something into his computer to try and find the live footage.

“It didn’t,” Tony answered, causing Natasha to frown even more. “Clint called and said something stupid like “the baby is crawling” and after a horribly complicated game of guessing, he finally just said von Strucker had left in a hurry. I tracked him through the Nazi security channels and found this.”

“How long ago?” Natasha asked. Tony paused a moment to think, calculating the hours in his head before grimacing.

“About four hours ago,” he said. Natasha groaned, glancing at the live footage from the camera. The room was empty, but that probably didn’t mean they had let her out. Tony was able to scan through the footage and find out they’d removed her from that room about three hours earlier, looking much more beat up and nervous than she had when she’d gone in. He didn’t scan back far enough to find out just what they’d done to her.

“Clint and Steve are still at the embassy?” Natasha asked, walking away from Tony’s desk. She paused in the doorway and looked back at Tony who nodded. They had another hour before they’d be let go for the night. “I’m gonna call Maria then. She’ll need to know about this.”

* * *

Clint sat at his desk, tapping his pen on his desk. He was never given any work that took him very long. He had the suspicion it was because the embassy didn’t trust him or knew what his real purpose was, but he couldn’t be sure. His tapping had become a game to him; seeing how many times he could tap the table before someone new showed up to visit von Strucker. However entertaining it had been when he’d first come up with it, it was getting boring now. He was about to throw his pen across the room when his phone rang.

“Good afternoon, thank you for call--” he was interrupted before he could finish his scripted greeting and frowned.

“You need to get back now,” Tony said on the phone. “Don’t ask questions, just grab Steve and come quickly.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Clint promised. That wasn’t good enough for Tony who demanded he leave right now before hanging up. Clint rolled his eyes as he hung up the phone then stood up. He knocked on von Strucker’s door and entered when he was told to. Von Strucker looked up from his desk, shifting some papers when he realised it was Clint who had entered.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Weiss?” von Strucker asked.

“Sorry, sir,” Clint said, nodding his head in respect. “My wife went into labor and I need to leave if possible.”

“Of course,” von Strucker said, nodding back at Clint. Clint thanked him, raising his arm in salute then left the room. Von Strucker uncovered his papers and continued his work, barely pausing to answer when his private phone rang. “Hello?” he asked.

“Whatever you do, don’t let your secretary leave the building,” the caller said. Von Strucker paused his work and looked up at the door Clint had just walked through. The caller didn’t say anything else before hanging up. Von Strucker frowned at his phone then reached for his other phone. He dialled the phone number for the security office and waited for them to pick up.

“Yes, this is Baron von Strucker,” he said calmly, putting aside his paperwork for the day. “It appears that my new secretary is working with what remains of the SSR. You will find him in the elevator headed to the first floor. Please arrest him at any cost and take him to the detainment center on Sunset Avenue.”

“Yes, Baron,” the man said. Von Strucker hung up and put away his private phone. He packed up his papers in his briefcase and locked it, tossing the key in his desk drawer before locking that as well. He grabbed his jacket and hat then left his office, walking towards the elevator on the far side of the building.

“Leaving so soon, Baron?” a man asked. von Strucker turned to see Head Service Leader Andrew Schuess. 

“I’m afraid so,” von Strucker replied, stopping to humor the man for a moment. “Something came up that demands my immediate attention. Do me a favor, Andrew,” von Strucker said, turning to face Andrew and lowered his voice. “If anyone asks where I am over the next few days, tell them I was needed in Berlin.”

“Of course, sir,” Andrew nodded, saluting von Strucker proudly. Von Strucker smiled and saluted him back before continuing his course toward the other side of the building.

Clint stood in the elevator, watching as the numbers went from thirty-three to zero as he rode down to the base level of the embassy. He was on floor ten when the elevator stopped and the doors opened. A group of security guards stepped in the elevator with him, but didn’t press any buttons. Clint frowned, but didn’t say anything. They continued their descent and were on floor three when the first guard tried to shoot Clint. He barely managed to dodge the bullet as he kicked the gun out of the guards hand. Another guard grabbed him from behind and Clint threw him over his shoulders.

The elevator came to an abrupt halt and the doors opened to reveal a whole array of guards with guns pointed at him. Clint’s eyes widened at the sight and he turned to jump through the glass elevator, but a guard shoved him to the ground. Multiple people jumped on him and Clint was unable to throw them off. He struggled to lift his head up from the floor, only to receive a hit to the base of his skull that caused his vision to go black.

* * *

Steve was in the middle of mopping the men’s bathroom on the fifteenth floor when an announcement came over the intercom. He paused his work, trying to understand what the grainy message was saying, but couldn’t make it out. He didn’t speak very good German in the first place, so to hear it over an intercom didn’t help. He shrugged and continued to mop the bathroom, taking his time before moving on to the next bathroom.

As he stepped out of the bathroom, he paused. The entire floor was silent and he couldn’t see anyone working in their cubicles. He frowned and pushed the mop and bucket into the elevator to go to the next floor. He stepped out only to find the sixteenth floor just as deserted. Instead of getting out, he pressed the button to take him to the ground floor. Maybe someone downstairs could tell him what was going on.

He was between floor three and two when he got the feeling that something wasn’t right. He hit the button that said ‘2’ on it and the doors opened a moment later. Just like the other floors, this one was deserted. He walked to a desk and picked up the phone, dialling the number to Clint’s office. It rang and rang, then the line went dead. Clint wasn’t up there. He tried again and the same thing happened, confirming even further that something was wrong. He walked toward a window and looked down at the parking lot. It was still full of cars and the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street was bustling with people, but the one in front of the embassy was empty. He walked back to the desk and called the front desk of the embassy. The phone rang for a while and Steve was about to hang up when someone answered.

“Good afternoon, thank you for calling the Nazi Embassy of New York,” the woman greeted happily. Steve frowned, not recognising her voice as Clara’s, the woman who usually worked at the front desk. “How can I help you?”

“Hello, it’s Peter Oss,” Steve said, glancing at the name on the desk he was standing at. “I was just calling to say I can’t seem to find anyone on my floor. I was in the bathroom and came out, only to find everyone gone.”

“There was an announcement on the coms a few minutes ago, Peter,” the woman told him sweetly. Steve sighed.

“I wondered,” he replied. He glanced out the window again as a large SUV pulled up to the curb and a group of men stepped out. “I fear the intercom in the men’s bathroom must be broken. I didn’t hear anything.”

“I see,” the woman said. The men outside marched into the building, but Steve didn’t miss the way their jackets rested unevenly on their backs. He frowned as a jacket shifted just enough he could see the gun one of the men was carrying. “I’ll send someone up to come get you. Just sit tight.”

“Alright, thank you,” Steve said. He didn’t hear the woman’s response as he hung up the phone and hurried to the far side of the building toward the fire escape. Something was definitely wrong and he needed to get out of there. He’d had the sinking suspicion he and Clint had been discovered, but now he was certain of it.

He pushed through the door, causing it to slam against the brick wall of the stairwell. He hurried up the stairs until he came to a door that led him outside on the fourth floor. He could hear shouting from above and below him as he pushed the door open and an alarm sounded. The door slammed shut behind him and he looked down. It was a long jump onto hard cement, but he didn’t have many other options. He jumped over the side of the railing, dangling from the bottom of it. His feet were still two stories from the ground, but if he rolled, he could land with minimal damage. Just as he let go of the fire escape, the door flew open and armed guards began to shoot at him. He hit the ground, a sharp pain shooting up his ankle, and rolled to slow himself down. The bullets rained down around him and he jumped to his feet, ignoring the throbbing coming from his left ankle.

Steve covered his head and ran. He ran in a zig-zag pattern, making it harder to be hit but making himself dizzy. As he turned a corner, he stopped zig-zagging and broke into a dead sprint across the town. He could hear car sirens behind him and ducked into an alley, nearly crashing into a garbage bin and knocking it over. The sirens seemed to be coming from all sides and he barely had time to dive behind a pile of trash bags before a group of officers ran past him. He was panting, but tried to hold his breath as they raced by. Once he was sure they were gone, he climbed out from behind the trash bags and continued running through the alley.

He’d barely ducked into a new alley after crossing the street when he came face to face with a large rifle. He stopped abruptly and looked up to see three officers standing in front of him. They had helmets on so he couldn’t see their faces, but he was pretty sure patrol officers didn’t have access to such heavy duty guns.

“On the ground,” one of them yelled. Steve slowly kneeled down, not looking away from the three men. The middle one stayed put as the other two moved around him to cuff Steve’s hands behind his back. They pulled him to his feet and the third man stepped to the side. Steve was led out of the alley and into the back of a government car, officers appearing from multiple side streets and keeping their guns locked on Steve. The guns didn’t go away even after Steve was safely inside the car. Two more officers ducked into the car to ride with him, keeping their guns at the ready until they came to their destination.

It wasn’t a short drive and as the minutes ticked by, Steve began to wonder where they were going. He knew where the main detention centers in New York were and relatively how far away they were, but as far as he could tell, they weren’t headed toward any of them. The officers around him didn’t relax, though, never letting their guard down for the entire trip. When they finally did come to a stop far from the city and in front of a building Steve had never seen before, they seemed just as ready to shoot him as they had in the alley.

An officer barked out an order in German and the door to the building slowly pulled open. Steve was pushed through the door and down a dark hallway with nothing but the officers behind him for guidance. They stopped him in front of a door and he waited as an officer came around and unlocked it. The door was pulled open and Steve continued down the hall. Rusty metal bars formed jail cells on either side of him. Most of them were empty and filthy, but a few looked like they’d been recently cleaned. They were almost at the end of the hall when movement to his right caught his attention.

“Carol?” he asked, stopping in his tracks. The woman looked up and her dark eyes met his. His eyes widened just as hers did, but he was shoved forward before she could scramble to her feet.

“Steve? Steve, what are you doing here?” she yelled, hurrying to the bars of her cell and rattling them loudly. An officer pointed his gun at her and she recoiled immediately. Steve pushed against the officers holding him back, twisting around to look back at Carol.

“Carol? What happened?” he asked, struggling to talk over the officers pushing him down. He didn’t hear Carol’s answer as an officer punched his gut harshly. He groaned and the officers continued to drag him down the hall. He heard Carol yelling behind him, but the officers pushed him through a door and her voice was blocked.

* * *

Natasha and Tony waited in the den for half an hour before realising Steve and Clint weren’t going to show up. Tony was about to double check outside the front doors of the bar to make sure they weren’t banging on locked doors when Maria and Pierce walked in from the back room entrance. Natasha had told him Maria was bringing Pierce, but he still didn’t like seeing the man standing in his den. He knew Pierce had tried getting onto his computer multiple times in the past and Tony tended not to trust people who dug through his things (unless it was Natasha; that was a whole different story).

“Where’s Barton and Rogers?” Maria asked, looking around the den in case they were huddled in a corner. “I thought you were calling them in.”

“I did,” Tony told her, leaning back in his chair. “Barton even answered and said he’d be here in a few, but as you can see, they didn’t show.”

“Do we know why?” Pierce asked. Tony stared at him blankly and Natasha sighed irritably. She knew Tony wasn’t Pierce’s biggest fan, but the least he could do is answer his unobtrusive questions. “I need to know where two of my agents are, Stark.”

“I don’t know,” Tony replied sharply. Pierce narrowed his eyes at him, clearly not believing what Tony had said. When Natasha confirmed that they did not, in fact, know why Clint and Steve hadn’t shown up, Pierce seemed to take the answer seriously.

“Let me get this straight,” Pierce said, crossing his arms and looking down at Tony. “We still don’t know who the Nazi spy is, Carol Danvers, Clint Barton, and Steve Rogers have gone MIA, all within the last five hours, and you don’t know anything?”

“No,” Tony objected, looking up from his computer screen. He looked directly at Pierce as he told him, “We know Carol was kidnapped by Nazi officers who were tailing her and Natasha this afternoon; we know Clint and Rogers were compromised at the embassy; and we know that von Strucker is back on Natasha’s tail, probably responsible for tailing her and Carol earlier. So no, Mr. Pierce, we do know things, we just don’t know the right things. That’s where you--” he pointed an accusing finger at Pierce “--come in: to tell us just what’s going on here.”

Pierce stared at Tony blankly, daring him to continue. Tony had finished, though, and sat back in his chair to wait for Pierce’s response. He looked up at Pierce expectantly, crossing his arms over his chest and throwing his feet up on his desk. Pierce looked at Natasha, but she didn’t reprimand her brother for snapping. Rather, she stood behind his chair with a smug smirk almost too small to see. When Pierce realised they really weren’t going to do anything until he gave them some answers, he sighed and looked around the room for a seat. The only thing that resembled a seat was the bean bag Natasha had stuff in a corner and he was not about to sit on that.

“If you want some answers,” Pierce said, “You better find me a nice chair and some food.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carol, Steve, and Clint have all been captured by Nazis! Not only that, but how did von Strucker know Clint was an ex-SSR agent? Who called von Strucker to make sure he didn't let Clint leave? What on earth is going on?


	9. That Awkward Moment When Your Dreams Come True, But Not in The Way You Planned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guess who's back? Hope you weren't too annoyed with how things were left last time and I’m sorry for the extra time between updates, but now I'm back and with another update. Just to remind you what happened, Steve, Carol, and Clint were all captured by Nazis after Natasha went to visit Maria and tell her what she thought was going on. A little while after the three are captured, Pierce and Maria show up in Tony's den and Tony demands answers Pierce isn't excited about sharing. Unfortunately, the chapter ended before we could find out what Pierce had to say, so read below to find out!

Steve could think of at least four times he’d ever thought about what it would be like to be kidnapped and tortured by Nazis. As of right now, none of his predictions even came close to the real deal. To his surprise, he hadn’t actually been tortured yet, something he’d thought for sure would occur within his first hour of capture. Nevertheless, he remained relatively unharmed aside from the bruise forming on his jaw. He might have made the mistake of punching a guard after being separated from Carol, but that part had been something he’d imagined. He hadn’t imagined how much it would actually hurt, but at least one thing was going according to his pre-imagined scenarios.

After being separated from Carol, Steve had been taken to a room at the far end of the hall. The officers had cuffed him to a metal table and left, leaving him to entertain himself, so he did. Steve sat in the cold chair, staring at the wall across from him and gave each individual brick a name and a story. Growing up an only child provided him with an active imagination and it wasn’t the first time Steve’s only entertainment happened to be a brick wall. Luckily for the bricks, Steve wasn’t an amatuer when it came to creating stories and instead of having boring lives, they got to live the dream. Susan was the mother of three other bricks and worked as a chocolate taster while her husband, Sven, worked in a chapstick creating firm. Their neighbour, Tanya, was single and had seven parrots, two donkeys, and twelve ferrets. He was in the middle of trying to come up with Susan’s great aunt’s cousin’s friend’s job when von Strucker himself walked into the room and sat down across from him.

“Good afternoon, Steve Rogers,” he said, smiling warmly at him as he laid a file on the table. Steve didn’t have to look at it to know it was probably his own, but he still did. “Oh, you can have this,” von Strucker told him, sliding the file across the table to Steve. Steve raised an eyebrow and flipped the file open. He frowned in confusion as he read over the file. It wasn’t his, it was Tony’s.

“Why do you have this?” he asked, reading the brief summary that had been written about Tony. Steve could tell right away the file was a fake, but continued to read it so he could tell Tony just what the Nazis thought of him.

“I just figured you’d want to learn more about your new friend,” von Strucker replied easily. He leaned back in his chair and watched as Steve flipped through the file. Most of the pages were blank, a testament to just how little they knew about Tony. The little information they did have on him, though, was outrageous. If they really wanted Steve to believe Tony worked on the black market, they’d have to have more evidence than just a few vague descriptions about his “dealings”.

“You know this is all fake, right?” Steve said, closing the file and sliding it across the table and back in front of von Strucker. von Strucker tilted his head, seeming intrigued by Steve’s accusation. “I’ve met Tony Stark and there’s no way he’s involved with the black market. Aside from technology, he’s pretty useless. Everything in that file besides his name is probably false.”

“So I’ve been told,” von Strucker replied with a smile. He seemed pretty chipper for someone who’d just been told all the information he had on someone was fake. “You see, I’ve met Tony Stark too. I know we don’t have much on him, but I have his sister to thank for that; always makes sure the information we obtain about her brother is deleted before it can be written down.”

“Natasha?” Steve asked before he could stop himself. “You know about Natasha?”

“That’s what she goes by now?” von Strucker hummed amusedly. He chuckled and stood up from his chair, crossing his arms as he walked around the room. “No, I knew her as Natalia and she was my best assassin.” Steve frowned. Clearly von Strucker was talking about a different person. However, as far as Steve knew, Tony only had one sister and it was Natasha. He supposed he could understand the confusion though as Natalia and Natasha were pretty similar. “I’m sorry you didn’t know about this, I know they tend to keep family history on the down low. Tony did very well at getting her off my radar once she defected, but it only took one mistake and we got her back.”

“We must be thinking about different people,” Steve told him. Von Strucker raised an eyebrow at him and pulled another file out from his briefcase. “Natasha would never work for the Reich. All offense, but she hates you more than I imagined it was possible to hate something.”

“Have you ever wondered, Mr. Rogers, how she came to hate us so much?” von Strucker asked. He opened the file and slid it across the table to Steve. Steve hesitated before looking down at the file, sure he was going to some other face. To his surprise, Natasha’s face glared up at him. He flipped through the pages quickly, skimming over her large file. There was a thick stack of papers that were stapled towards the back of the file, each with three faces and names. Across each face was a faded stamp that read ‘done’ along with the location of their death.

“What is this?” Steve whispered, staring in horror at the sheer amount of people that had been murdered and stuck in Natasha’s file. He looked up at von Strucker who smirked down at him.

“That is Natasha Stark’s file,” he told Steve quietly. He flipped back toward the front pages that Steve hadn’t bothered reading over and pointed to a faintly wrinkled page. Steve looked down to see a letter handwritten and signed by Natasha, pledging her allegiance to the Reich. “Now that I have your attention,” von Strucker said softly, drawing Steve’s attention up from the file. “I believe we have quite a few things to talk about.”

* * *

Natasha sat across the table from Pierce, watching him closely as he told her and Tony just what they were doing and why. Tony bounced his leg beside her but she didn’t bother stopping him. It was better he use his energy to bounce than attack someone. He never had been very good at controlling his temper and it only got worse when he was agitated with someone he didn’t trust. Natasha also didn’t want to pull her attention away from Pierce in case a tell-tale sign he was lying or continuing to hide the truth escaped her attention. It was hard enough to read Pierce as it was, she didn’t need or want any extra distractions. As much as she wanted to believe Pierce was being fully honest with her, Tony’s paranoia was rubbing off on her and she couldn’t be sure if he really was being truthful anymore.

“You failed to tell me von Strucker was back on your trail, though,” Pierce said, staring pointedly at Natasha as he took a bite of his sandwich. Natasha simply blinked and Pierce continued on. “We know he’s planning to take over once Hitler’s gone, but after your little midnight spy game with Barton, we know he plans to do it in his own house.”

“Don’t tell us what we know,” Tony interrupted, rubbing his hands together under the table. “We want to know why we’re the ones who have to take care of it, how to get the others back, and just how we plan on stopping von Strucker.”

“I’m getting there,” Pierce said patiently. He took another bite of his sandwich and Tony looked about ready to combust. Natasha grabbed his hand, rubbing the back of it soothingly and getting Tony to calm down a little bit. “I know all of you. I know you’re a good agent and familiar with the Reich--” he nodded to Natasha who narrowed her eyes slightly then nodded at Tony to say, “--I know you can get through any firewall someone could dream up, I know Steve is a good fighter and strategist, and I know Barton is an excellent marksman and agent. Carol has the best base set-up I’ve seen besides the SSR and no one would suspect her to be involved. I didn’t just throw a team together, I knew what I was doing. You five have the talent and determination needed to take this man out.”

“Fair enough,” Natasha conceded, ignoring Tony when his head snapped up to look at her in disbelief. He’d never be satisfied with Pierce’s answers, she knew, so she moved the conversation forward. “So what’s the plan? How do we get the others back?” she asked. Pierce sighed and slouched in his chair, leaning over the table and staring down at his half eaten sandwich.

“I have to be honest, losing Barton, Danvers, and Rogers wasn’t in the original plan,” Pierce told them. He looked back up from the table at Tony and Natasha. “We figured someone would get caught along the way, just not three people. That doesn’t mean we weren’t prepared.”

“So you have a plan for how to break them out?” Tony asked. Pierce hesitated, not sure he could call it a plan.

“I have an idea,” he admitted. Tony didn’t immediately snap at him for not having a full plan, so Pierce counted it as a win. “It may need adjustment, but I’m sure we can figure something out.” Tony looked at Natasha and she gave a small nod at his unvoiced question.

“Good,” he said, turning back to Pierce and Hill who was sat beside him. “Let’s hear this idea.”

* * *

Natasha walked into her bedroom to find Tony messing with something on his bed. She barely batted an eye when she saw a gun in his hands, only pausing when she realised it was one of hers. She watched him for a moment until he stopped to look up at her. He smiled sheepishly then went back to fiddling with her gun. He didn’t explain what he was doing to it or why, continuing to take it apart and put it back together purposelessly. The longer Natasha watched him, the more she realised he was trying to become familiar with it. She sucked in a breath when she realised he was expecting to go in with her.

“You can’t stop me from coming with you,” Tony told her. She wasn’t surprised he’d noticed her sharp intake of breath or understood what it meant. “You may be the best at what you do, but that doesn’t make you invincible.”

“We need you outside,” she said, reaching for her gun. Tony pulled it out of her reach and she scowled. “You know how to monitor and hack every computer; you have to be the one outside.”

“I showed Maria,” he said. Natasha frowned. Maria always did fieldwork when she had the chance. Why had she agreed to monitor security footage and play tech geek instead of shooting Nazis? “I also bribed her, but she only agreed once I promised to follow you and not ask questions. Something about me not knowing how this goes and you being the best.”

“Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Natasha deadpanned. Tony sighed and handed her back her gun. She stuffed it in the waistline of her jeans and sat down beside Tony. “I know you want to do more, but no one else is as good as you with computers. No one else could tell if they’d been detected. No one else is as knowledgeable as you when it comes to hacking Nazi databases. Besides, you’re kind of the only one I know I can trust to have my back.”

“Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere,” Tony repeated. Natasha rolled her eyes and nudged him with her shoulder. He groaned and fell backwards onto the bed. He turned his head to look at her and frowned. “If you get caught, I’ll kill you.”

“Deal,” Natasha agreed. She stood up and held out her hand to help Tony up. He groaned loudly as she pulled him to his feet then disappeared into her closet to grab more weapons. “It’s gonna be fine, Tony,” she assured him, rummaging through her drawers and stuffing guns in the many pockets of her black cargo pants.

“You’re about to infiltrate a secure Nazi facility with no backup and only Maria,” Tony reminded her. Natasha shrugged.

“It’ll be fun,” she told him, closing her closet doors and heading out of the room. Tony rolled his eyes then followed her out to find Pierce and Maria.

* * *

Clint was sprawled out on the floor of his cell, listening to Carol talk quietly from her own cell across from his. He’d only just returned from what he had decided was probably both illegal and uncalled for questioning. Von Strucker himself hadn’t showed up, but he figured the man was around somewhere, just waiting to pop up and reveal the fact he knew who Clint was the entire time. He’d learned within two minutes of his return that Steve had been brought in too. Carol had told him about it before the guards even left and Clint didn’t have the heart to tell her she should have acted as if she didn’t know him. By now it was too late and Carol already seemed worried enough. He didn’t want to cause her any more panic than necessary.

“Steve!” Carol exclaimed. Clint lifted his head up from the floor to see Steve being escorted into the cell beside his own. Carol ran to the bars of her cell and pressed against them, asking what had happened and if he was alright. Unlike Carol, Steve waited until the guards were gone to say anything.

“Did you know Natasha worked for the Reich?” Steve asked, ignoring Carol and addressing Clint. They couldn’t see each other through the wall that separated them, but Clint was willing to bet Steve wasn’t smiling happily. “She acted as Hitler’s top assassin for ten years. Did you know that Clint? Did you know we were being played this whole time? God!” Steve yelled. Clint heard a dull thud followed by a hiss of pain. He sat up and looked across the room to Carol. She was watching Steve with wide eyes, glancing at Clint every now and then.

“I did,” Clint admitted, pulling his legs to his chest. He waited for Steve to yell at him and wasn’t surprised when he did. “Are you going to let me explain?” Clint demanded, raising his voice to be heard over Steve’s angry shouts. “Or are you going to just fall right into von Strucker’s trap?” That shut Steve up immediately. “Thank you. Now, what exactly did von Strucker tell you?”

“She worked for them for ten years!” Steve repeated angrily. Clint rolled his eyes and bit back a retort about how Steve had already said that. “Both of them, goddammit. Trained and raised by Hitler’s best SS officers after they were born into the Lebensborn Program. We were played and you knew about it,” Steve said, sounding more upset that he hadn’t caught on earlier than he sounded about the fact they’d been played.

“Okay, so that’s all true,” Clint mumbled. He sighed and walked to the corner of his cell in hopes of being able to see Steve. Steve must have been pressed against their shared wall because Clint couldn’t see him anywhere. “Obviously it’s not my story to tell, but I think I can help shed some light on it.”

“You might as well,” Steve grumbled. Clint glanced at Carol who was watching him expectantly.

“Yes, Natasha and Tony were Lebensborn and raised by the top SS agents,” Clint said. He heard Steve take in a sharp breath and continued. “They didn’t know better. They were kids caught in the middle of the Reich’s big plans and grew up to be the best of the best. You’ve seen how Tony is with technology; there’s literally no one else alive who could rival his skill. Natasha was trained to be a killer. She was a woman. It was easy for her to lure targets out of their safety nets and therefore easier for her to kill them.

“I’d like to say that I was the one who helped them realise what they were doing was wrong, but I don’t think that’s entirely true,” Clint chuckled and shook his head, “No, they had already made up their mind to defect when I found them. I’m not sure why or how they came to the decision to leave everything they knew, but they did. Natasha joined me in the SSR, but Tony was done working for agencies. Started his own thing on the black market and now they’re here.”

It was silent for a few minutes as Steve process everything. Clint wasn’t sure if he’d end up believing him or not, but for all their sakes, he hoped so. If he knew Natasha and Tony, they were probably on their way to breaking them out right now. The last thing they needed while making a hasty escape was Steve to think they were being led into a trap when they weren’t.

“How do you know all that?” Steve finally asked. That wasn’t exactly the question Clint had been expecting, but at least Steve wasn’t flat out calling him a liar.

“I was sent in to kill them,” Clint said, looking at the ground. He still remembered the day Pierce had given him the mission and demanded he kill both Starks no matter what the cost. “Pierce wanted them gone. They were tearing apart the SSR and he needed them off the playing field if he was going to be able to get rid of the Reich. As it turned out, they wanted to help us. Unfortunately, even with their help, we failed and the SSR was almost entirely killed off.”

“That doesn’t strike you as suspicious?” Steve asked, walking to the bars of his cell and looking at Clint with a frown. “The Reich’s best agents defect and the SSR gets destroyed, that doesn’t rub you the wrong way?”

“You don’t know them like I do,” Clint said, trying to hide the venom in his voice. He knew how hard Natasha had tried to right her wrongs and how even if he hadn’t been apart of the SSR while it was around, Tony was trying to make up for his mistakes as well. “The SSR was doomed from the start. An illegal agency in a world of liars and cheats? We were destined to fail. The Starks didn’t cause it, though. Without their help, we would have been decimated years earlier, so trust me when I say we can trust them.”

“I don’t know if I can do that, Barton,” Steve replied coldly. He backed away from the bars and Clint lost sight of him. “This whole arrangement is fishy. We haven’t known each other for more than a couple weeks and you expect me to trust you with my life.”

“Well, yeah,” Clint said as if it was the most obvious thing he could do. Steve scoffed. “You have a choice, Rogers: trust me and therefore trust the Starks, risking betrayal and death, or stay here and die at the hands of von Strucker. Let me know when you’ve made up your mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, time to clear some things up! First things first: the Lebensborn Program was something created in Nazi Germany to breed the best citizens. Heinrich Himmler founded it in order to raise more "racially pure" or Aryan children to outnumber the Jews and other "impure" races. Young girls could apply to the program and then put through a rigorous race test to make sure they were "pure". These women then had children with SS agents and were taken care of the entire pregnancy. The Program wasn't as successful as Himmler thought it would be, so the SS began stealing children deemed racially pure (blond hair and blue eyes) right from their parents and raising them as young SS agents. If the children didn't concede to Nazi ways, they were beaten and sent to concentration camps. If they accepted the Nazi ways, they were adopted by SS families. It's really rather horrible and isn't as well known as it was a more secret project. So anyway, that's the Lebensborn Program and you can find all sorts of information by simply searching it.
> 
> A lot was revealed in this chapter and I hope it wasn't too confusing. Feel free to re-read it or google to clear up any questions you may have and I will see you all next week!


	10. Knock Knock. Who’s There? The Secret Nazi Spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Does everyone remember what happened last time? If not, here's the recap: Steve gets a visit from von Strucker who reveals that Natasha and Tony used to work for the Reich/HYDRA/Red Room (it's all kind of the same in this story). Clint tries to clear things up but isn't necessarily successful. Meanwhile, Pierce, Tony, Natasha, and Maria are getting ready to head up the rescue mission we'll see take place in this chapter. Good luck to our Avenger friends and enjoy!

Natasha was pressed against the corner of the building, Maria standing behind her and checking her gun over. Tony and Pierce were further down the street in the basement of an abandoned apartment building. According to Pierce, Carol, Clint, and Steve had all been taken to the same place on the far side of town. Tony had double checked security and traffic cameras to make sure he was right--much to Pierce’s chagrin--and confirmed the three were all inside the building. Not only did they have video footage of the three being escorted into cells at different times, but Tony had found something on his secure channel pop up about von Strucker making three arrests. Whether it was luck or a trap, they weren’t sure. Nonetheless, Natasha and Maria discreetly made their way toward the building.

While Natasha picked through the security, Maria kept her gun up and watched for any officers or people that might be around. It didn’t take more than half a minute before Natasha was pushing open the door and they were stepping inside. Over their comms, Tony told them to go right down the hall, watching them from the security footage on his laptop. The actual security guards were stuck watching looped footage while Tony got the live feed directly to his laptop.

“When you’re coming out, the best exit it to your left,” Tony said. Natasha glanced over her shoulder and stored away the image for later. She couldn’t be sure they would be able to sneak out or if they’d be outrunning bullets. “Take a left here and go down two flights of stairs.”

Natasha and Maria did as he instructed then stopped. Natasha frowned and pressed her ear against the door, pausing before pulling open the door. Tony informed them it was all clear on his cameras, but Natasha was pretty sure she’d just heard multiple sets of boots pounding on the floor opposite the door they were against.

“Tony, are you absolutely certain?” Natasha asked, leaning away from the door and getting ready to pull it open. Tony didn’t immediately respond and Natasha tapped her comm to make sure it was on. “Tony?”

“Yeah, give me a minute,” he muttered, flipping through the security channels. Everything appeared normal, but something felt off. The halls were empty, but he knew there was a reason Natasha had hesitated. “It all seems normal. I’m not watching looped footage and there’s no sign we’ve been discovered yet.”

Natasha took a deep breath and yanked open the door, ducking behind it in case bullets flew at them. Nothing happened, though, and she carefully peered around the corner. Just like Tony had said, the hall was completely empty. She hurried through the door with Maria close behind. They closed the door quietly and looked up to see two patrol officers in front of them. Natasha barely blinked before they were shot and crumpling to the ground. She glanced back at Maria who shrugged.

“Still worried about my backup?” Natasha asked Tony, smiling as they continued down the halls.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony replied, waving her off. He flipped to the next camera and watched as they appeared on the screen. “Heads up. Five guards coming from the right hall.”

Natasha and Maria pressed against the wall, waiting for the guards to pass them. They turned the corner and were dead before they could even register the fact that Maria and Natasha were in front of them. Natasha pulled them around the corner then followed Maria further into the building. The deeper they got, the more often they ran into guards. None of them pulled an alarm, though, and they were able to get to the bottom floor without much of a problem.

“It seems pretty empty considering von Strucker’s probably expecting us,” Maria mumbled, following Natasha down more stairs. Natasha glanced back at her, silently agreeing with her. They came to the bottom of the stairs and waited for Tony’s go ahead, but the comms remained silent.

“Tony? We clear?” Natasha asked. There was no response and Natasha frowned, tapping her comm. She pulled it out of her ear and double checked to make sure it hadn’t died. It still had half its battery life left, but Tony wasn’t saying anything. There wasn’t even static to tell them they’d gone out of range, a nearly impossible feat but not unheard of.

“Stark, come in,” Maria demanded. Still nothing. She tried Pierce, but he didn’t respond either. The two women shared a look only to jump in surprise at the sound of the loud alarms overhead. Maria cursed and Natasha pulled open the door in front of them. She raised her gun around the door and shot twice before peering around the corner. One guard laid dead on the ground while another ran down the hall. Natasha stepped through the door and shot the rogue guard through the chest. He dropped to the ground as Maria slipped through the door behind her, gun up in case they came across more guards.

With Tony and Pierce offline, they were left to their own guessing as to which direction to go. Natasha had glanced at the floor plans before they left, but she wasn’t one hundred percent sure when she turned a corner. She stopped short as they came face to face with a dozen guards. She pulled Maria back around the corner as bullets rained down on them, embedding themselves in the walls and bouncing off the floor. Natasha reached around the corner and shot blindly, listening to bodies hit the ground with each shot. It took her eight bullets before they were all down thanks to Maria’s assistance.

“Grab a gun,” Natasha told her, yanking an assault rifle off a dead guard. She grabbed his pistol as well, stuffing her own in her waistband and checking to make sure both new guns were full of ammo. She didn’t have more for her own gun and was running low. Now that the alarms had been activated, they were more likely to run into SS agents and guards.

“Which way?” Maria asked, raising her voice above the alarm. Natasha shrugged and dropped to the floor. Maria followed suit, covering her head as Natasha raised her pistol and shot their attacker. He slumped to the floor and they sprang up to their feet.

“Wherever the guards come from,” Natasha answered, running down the hallway the dozen guards had come from. Maria pursed her lips but didn’t argue as she followed Natasha down the hall. They came to the end of the hall and turned right only to find two dozen guards in front of them. Natasha glanced to her left to see if they could run that direction, but there were another dozen guards there.

“Well this is nice,” Maria said, glancing back the way they had come. Before either of them could run back, the hallway they were standing in filled with guards as well. Maria glanced at Natasha. The red head did not look happy at being cornered as she threw the rifle she had to the ground and dropped the pistol. Maria followed suit as the guards closed in, rifles still aimed at them as they surrounded the two.

As a few guards handcuffed their wrists and searched them for more weapons, the rest kept their guns trained on them in case they tried to run free. Natasha frowned as a guard pulled out her personal gun and tossed it to the floor. They continued to grope and prod at her until they were confident they’d taken all her knives, tasers, and guns off her person. Maria stared down at the pile in front of them then looked up at Natasha.

“You really thought you’d need all that?” she asked. Natasha shrugged, letting a guard push her down the hall. Maria followed and the small army of officers escorted them through the large complex down to their cells.

* * *

Tony tapped his comm, calling out for Natasha. He could see them on the monitor, could watch as they hurried down some stairs, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. In hopes they could still hear him, he checked the next screen to see if they were clear to go through the door. He frowned at the sight of two guards walking past the door, telling the girls to wait. Instead of waiting, they yanked open the door and shot around the corner. One guard slumped to the ground, but the other ran down the hallway. Before he could get very far, he crumpled to the ground with a bullet wound in his chest.

“Natasha, can you hear me?” Tony asked. She didn’t respond, either ignoring or not able to hear Tony’s warnings about the dozen or so guards down the next hall. Tony yelled in frustration when they turned toward the guards and were immediately shot at.

“What’s going on?” Pierce demanded, peering over Tony’s shoulder at the screen. Tony shook his head, frantically rebooting their comm system in hopes they would be able to reconnect. “Stark, get me back in contact with my agents.”

“I’m working on it,” Tony snapped. He watched as Natasha and Maria ran down another hallway and were immediately surrounded by guards, giving them no choice but to surrender. Tony cursed, standing up from his chair and kicking the wall. He paused then turned back to his computer and began typing furiously.

“What are you doing?” Pierce asked, watching Tony work.

“Crashing their system,” Tony answered vaguely. He minimized the security footage feed and opened a new program. “I should be able to lock down the whole place from out here. Natasha will know what’s going on, but no one else will. They’ll be able to get out without much suspicion, I just need to--” Tony was interrupted by the cocking of a gun behind him and cold metal being pressed against his head.

“You’ve done enough,” Pierce said coolly. Tony slowly raised his hands away from his keyboard as Pierce pressed the gun harder against his head. “It’s time for you to join the rest of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a little shorter than usual and I'm sorry, but I didn't want to drag it on when it's kind of an important chapter. At least now we know who the Nazi spy is, right? 
> 
> Important announcement regarding next week's update: As I will be traveling once more, I cannot guarantee I'll be able to publish. The likelihood is that I won't be able to so it'll be two weeks until I can. If I encounter WiFi at any point on my trip, I will try to remember to publish the next chapter. Again, I'm sorry I can't promise a date for my next chapter update, but I'll try my best. Thank you for your understanding and for reading!
> 
> Leave some comments below telling me what you thought!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! Thanks so much for reading the first chapter of my new book 'Once Upon an Us'. I know it needs a better name, so if you have ideas, feel free to drop a comment and let me know what you think this story should be called and what you thought of chapter one!
> 
> I just want to get a couple of things out there real quick. First of all, this story is something I've been working on for a long time, I am only just now getting around to actually publishing it. In case there was any confusion about the summary: Tony and Natasha are siblings in this, WWII was won by the Nazis, and no one in here has super powers. This book was heavily inspired by the TV show The Man in the High Castle which I really recommend you watch. It's not for the faint of heart as it does have graphic violence and heavy themes, but it's very good.
> 
> I'm hoping to set a regular updating schedule and publishing a new chapter every Sunday. As I said before, I've been working on this book for a long time so most of it is already written, I'm just currently working on the end and piecing everything together. As you read, pretty please drop comments about what you think of the characters and the storyline. Originally, I was going to write this as a fanfic then change it to my own character names and plotline, so some characters might be a bit strange, but I do hope it's not confusing.
> 
> Thanks again and I'll see you next week!


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